




ISASTHIilLi 5B®®SS'21a 




BOONE'S FIRST VIEW OF KENTUCKY. 



»• Fair was the scene that lay Flowers of the fairest dyes, 

Before the little band, Trees clothed in richest green; 

Which paused upon its toilsome way, And brightly smiled the deep-blue ski* 
To view this new found land. ' O'er this enchanting scene. 

Field, stream and valley spread, Such was Kentucky then, 

Far as the eye could f^aze. With wild luxuriance blest; 

With summer's beauty o'er them shed, Where no invading hand had been, 
And sunlight's brightest rays. The garden of the West." 



THE 



FIRST WHITE MAN OF THE 

WEST, 

OR THE 

LIFE AND EXPLOITS OF 

COL. DkWL, BOONE, 

THE FIRST SETTLER OF KENTUCKY ; 

INTERSPERSED WITH INCIDENTS 

IN THE 

EARLY ANNALS OF THE COUNTRY, 
BY TIMOTHY FLINT. 



H. M. RULISON, 

QUEEN CITT PUBLISHING HOUSE, 115K MAIN STREET, CINCINNAII: 

32 SOUTH THIRD STREET, PHHiADELPHIA. 

1856. 



ib 



Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1847, bj 

GEORGE CONCLIN 

»nthftClerk's Office of the District Court of the District cf Ohio. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 

Birth of Daniel Boone — His early propensities — His pranks at schao\ 
— His first liuntin^ expedition — And his encounter with a panther. 
Removal of the family to North Carolina — Boone becomes a hunter 
— Description of fire hunting, in which he was near committing a 
sad mistake — Its fortunate result — and his marriage. 

CHAPTER 11. 

Boone removes to the head waters of the Yadkin river — He insets 
with Finley, who had crossed the mountains into Tennessee — They 
agree to explore the wilderness w-ist of the AUeghanies together. 

CHAPTER III. 

Boone, with Finley and others, start on their exploring expedition — 
Boone kills a panther in the night — Their progress over the moun- 
tains — They descend into the great valley — Description of the new 
country — Herds of buffaloes — Their wanderings in the wilderness. 

CPIAPTER IV. 

The exploring party divide into different routes — Boone and Stewart 
taken prisoners by the Indians, and their escape — Boone meets with 
his elder brother and another white man in the woods — Stewart kil- 
'ed by the Indians, and the companion of the elder Boone destroyed 
by wolves — The elder brother returns to North Carolina, leaving 
Boone alone in the wilderness. 

CHAPTER V. 

Boone is pursued by the Indians, and eludes their pursuit — He encoun- 
ters and kills a bear — The return of his brother with ammunition — 
They explore the country — Boone kills a panther on *he back of a 
buffalo — ^They return to North Carolina. 

CHAPTER VI. 

Boone starts with his family to Kentucky — Their return to Clinch river 
— He conducts a party of surveyors to the Falls of Ohio — He helps 
build Boonesborough, and removes his family to the fort — His daugh- 
ter and two of Col. Calloway's daughte'rs taken prisoners by the 
Indians — They pursue the Indians and rescue the captives. 

CHAPTER VII. 

Settlement of Harrodsburgh — Indian mode of besieging and warfare- 
Fortitude and privation of the Pioneers — The Indians attack Hjir 
rodsburgh and Boonesborough — Description of a Station — Attack 
of Bryant's Station. 



CONTEIiTS. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Boone being attacked by two Indians near the Blue Licks, kills them 
both — ^Is afterwards taken prisoner and marched to Old Chillicothe 
—Is adopted by the Indians — Indian ceremonies. 

CHAPTER IX. 

Boone becomes a favorite among the Indians — Anecdotes relating to hu 
captivity — Their mode of tormenting and burning prisoners — Theii 
fortitude under the infliction of torture — Concerted attack on Boones- 
borough — Boone escapes. 

CHAPTER X. 

Six hundred Indians attack Boonesborough — Boone and Captain 
Smitii go out 10 treat with the enemy under a flag of truce, and 
are extricated from a treacherous attempt to detain them as pri- 
soners — Defence of the fort — The Indians defeated — Boone goe^ 
to North Carolina to bring back his family. 

CHAPTER XL 

A sketch of the character and adventures of several other pioneers— 
Harrod, Kent 3n, Logan, Ray, McAffee, and others. 

CHAPTER XII. 

Boone's brother killed, and Boone himself narrowly escapes from th« 
Indians — Assault upon Ashton's station — and upon the stxtion neaj 
Shelbyville — Attack upon McAfee's station. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Disastrous battle near the Blue Licks — General Clarke's expedition 
against the Miami towns — Massacre of McClure's family — The 
horrors of Indian assaults throughout the settlements — General 
Harmar's expedition — Defeat of General St. Clair — Gen. Wayne's 
victory, and a final peace with the Indians. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Rejoicings on account of the peace — Boone indulges his propensity foi 
hunting — Kentucky increases in population — Some account of theii 
conflicth.g land titles — Progress of civil improvement destroying the 
range of the hunter — Litigation of land tides — Boone ?oses his lands—* 
Removes from Kentucky to the Kanawha — Leaves the Kanawha and 
goes to Missouri, where he is appointed Commandant. 

CHAPTER XV. 

Anecdotes of Colonel Boone, related by Mr. AiK^ubon — A remarkable 
instance of memory. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Progress of improvement in Missouri — Old age of Boone — Death of hit 
wife — ^He goes to reside with his son — His death — His personal ajjh 
p«arance and character. 



PREFACE 



Our eastern brethren have entered heartily into the 
pious duty of bringing to remembrance the character and 
deeds of their forefathers. Shall we of the west allow 
the names of those great men, who won for us, from the 
forest, the savages, and wild beasts, our fair domain of 
fertile fields and beautiful rivers, to fade into oblivion? 
They who have hearts to admire nobility imparted by na- 
ture's great seal — fearlessness, strength, energy, saga- 
city, generous forgetfulness of self, the delineation of 
scenes of terror, and the relation of deeds of daring, will 
not fail to be interested in a sketch of the life of the pio- 
neer and hunter of Kentucky, Daniel Boone. Contem- 
plated in any light, we shall find him in his way and walk, 
a man as truly great as Penn, Marion, and Franklin, in 
theirs. True, he was not learned in the lore of bocks, 
or trained in the etiquette of cities. But he possesst^d a 
knowledge far more important in the sphere which Provi- 
dence called him to fill. He felt, too, the conscious digni- 
ty of self-respect, and would have been seen as erect, 
firm, and unembarrassed amid the pomp and splendor of 
the proudest court in Christendom, as in the shade of his 
own wilderness. Where nature in her own ineffaceable 
characters has marked superiority, she looks down upon 
the tiny and elaborate acquirements of art, and in all po- 
sitions and in all time entitles her favorites to the involun- 
tary homage of their fellow-men. They are the selected 
pilots in storms, the leaders in battles, and the pionecra 
in the colonization of new countries. 



PREFACE. 

Such a man was Daniel Boone, and wonderfully was he 
endowed by Providence for the part which he was called 
to act. Far be it from us to undervalue the advantages 
of education: It can do every thing but assume the pre- 
rogative of Providence. God has reserved for himself the 
attribute of creating. Distinguished excellence has never 
been attained, unless where nature and education, native 
endowment and circumstances, have concurred. Thia 
wonderful man received his commission for his achieve 
ments and his peculiar walk from the sign manual of na 
ture. He was formed to be a woodsman, and the adven 
turous precursor in the first settlement of Kentucky. His 
home was in the woods, where others were bewildered 
and lost. It is a mysterious spectacle to see a man pos- 
sessed of such an astonishing power of being perfectly fa- 
miliar with his route and his resources in the depths of the 
untrodden wilderness, where others could as little divine 
their way, and what was to be done, as mariners on raid- 
ocean, without chart or compass, sun, moon, or stars. But 
that nature has bestowed these endowments upon some 
men and denied them to others, is as certain as that she 
has given to some animals instincts of one kind, fitting 
them for peculiar modes of life, which are denied to others, 
perhaps as strangely endowed in another way. 

The following pages aim to present a faithful picture 
of this singular man, in his wanderings, captivities, and 
escapes. If the effort be successful, we have no fear that 
the attention of the reader will wander. There is a charm 
in such recitals, which lays its spell upon all. The grave 
and gay, the simple and the learned, the young and gray- 
haired alike yield to its influence. 

We wish to present him in his strong incipient manifes- 
tations of the development of his peculiar character in 
boyhcod. We then see him on foot and alone, with no 



PKEFACE. 



companion but his dog, and no friend but his rifle, making 
his way over trackless and unnamed mountains, and im 
measurable forests, until he explores the flowering wil- 
derness of Kentucky. Already familiar, by his own pe- 
culiar intuition, with the Indian character, we see him 
casting his keen and searching glance around, as the an- 
cient woods rung with the first strokes of his axe, and 
pausing from time to time to see if the echoes have star- 
tled the red men, or the wild beasts from theii lair. We 
trace him through all the succeeding explorations of the 
Bloody Ground, and of Tennessee, until so many immi- 
grants have followed in his steps, that he finds his privacy 
too strongly pressed upon; until he finds the huts and 
bounds of legal tenures restraining his free thoughts, and 
impelling him to the distant and unsettled shores of the 
Missouri, to seek range and solitude anew. We see him 
there, his eyes l>€ginning to grow dim with the influence 
of seventy winters — as he can no longer take the unerring 
aim of his rifle — casting wistful looks in the direction of 
the Rocky Mountains and the western sea ; and sadly re- 
minded that man has but one short life, in which to wander. 
No book can be imagined more interesting than would 
have been the personal narrative of such a man, written 
by himself. What a new pattern of the heart he might 
have presented! But, unfortunately, he does not seem to 
have dreamed of the chance that his adventures would go 
down to posterity in the form of recorded biography. We 
suspect that he rather eschewed books, parchment deeds, 
and clerkly contrivances, as forms of evil ; and held the 
dead letter of little consequence. His associates were as 
little likely to preserve any records, but those of memory, 
of the daily incidents and exploits, which indicate charac- 
ter and assume high interest, when they relate to a person 
like the subject of this narrative. These hunters, unerring 



PREFAUE. 

in their aim to prostrate the buffalo on his plain, or to bring 
down the geese and swans from the clouds, thought little 
of any other use of the gray goose quill, than its market 
value. 

Had it been otherwise, and had these men themselves 
furnished the materials of this narrative, we have no fear 
that it would go down to futurity, a more enduring monu- 
ment to these pioneers and hunters, than the granite col- 
umns reared by our eastern brethren, amidst assembled 
thousands, with magnificent array, and oratory, and songs, 
to the memory of tlieir forefathers. Ours would be the 
record of human nature speaking to human nature in sim- 
plicity and truth, in a language always impressive, and 
always understood. Their pictures of their own felt suffi- 
ciency to themselves, under the pressure of exposure and 
want; of danger, wounds, and captivity ; of reciprocal kind- 
ness, warm from the heart; of noble forgetfulness of self, 
unshrinking firmness, calm endurance, and reckless bra- 
very, would be sure to move in the hearts of their readers 
strings which never fail to vibrate to the touch. 

But these inestimable data are wanting. Our materi- 
als are comparatively few ; and we have been often obliged 
to balance between doubtful authorities, notwithstanding 
the most rigorous scrutiny of newspapers and pamphlets, 
whose yellow and dingy pages gave out a cloud of dust at 
every movement, and the equally rigid examination of 
clean modern books and periodicals. 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 



CHAPTER L 

B'rth of Daniel Boone — His early propensities — His pranks at school 
—His first hunting expedition — And his encour ter with a panther. 
Removal of tlie family to North Carolina — Boone becomes a hunter 
— Description of fire hunting, in which he was near committing a 
sad mistake — Its fortunate result — and his marriage. 

Different authorities assign a different birth 
place to Daniel Boone. One affirms that he was 
born in Maryland, another in North CaroUna, ano- 
ther in Virginia, and still another during the transit 
of his parents' across the Atlantic. But they are all 
equally in error. He was born in the year 1746, 
in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, near Bristol, on the 
right bank of the Delaware, about twenty miles 
from Philadelphia. His father removed, v/hen he 
was three years old, to the vicinity of Reading, on 
the head waters of the Schuylkill. From thence, 
when his son was thirteen years old, he migrated to 
North Carolina, and settled in one of the valleys of 
South Yadkin. 

The remotest of his ancestors, of whom there is 
aty recorded notice, is Joshua Boone, an English 



12 



LIFE OF DANIEi^ BOONB 



Catholic. He crossed the Atlantic t ne shores <k 
the Chesapeake Bay, with those who planted the 
first germ of the colony of Maryland. A leading 
motive to emigration with most of these colonists, 
was to avoid that persecution on account of thei. re- 
ligion, which however pleasant to inflict, they found 
it uncomfortable to endure. Whether this gentleman 
emigrated from this inducement, as has been asser- 
ted, or not, it is neither possible, nor, as we deem, 
important to settle; for we cannot find, that religious 
motives had any direct influence in shaping the 
character and fortunes of the hero of the wood?. 
Those who love to note the formation of character, 
and believe in the hereditary transmission of pecu- 
liar qualities, naturally investigate the peculiarities 
of parents, to see if they can find there the origin of 
those of the children. Many — and we are of the 
number — consider transmitted endowment as the 
most important link in the chain of circumstances, 
with which character is surrounded. The most 
splendid endowments in innumerable instances, have 
never been brought to light, in defect of circumstan- 
ces to call them forth. The ancestors of Boone were 
not placed in positions to prove, whether he did or 
did not receive his peculiar aptitudes a legacy from 
his parents, or a direct gift from nature. He pre- 
sents himself to us as a new man, the author and arti- 
ficer of his own fortunes, and showing from the be- 
ginning rudiments of character, of which history has 
recorded no trace in his ancestors. The promise of 
the future hunter appeared in his eariiest boyhood. 
He wagd a war of extermination, as soon as he 



LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE, 13 

•X)ula poise a gun, with squirrels, racoons, and wild 
cats, at that time exceedingly annoying to the fields 
and bani-yards of the back settlers. 

No sclioiar ever displayed more decided pre-emi 
nence in any branch of learning, than he did above 
the boys of his years, in adroitness and success in 
this species of hunting. This is the only distinct 
and peculiar trait of character recorded of his early 
years. The only transmitted fact of his early train- 
ing is presented in the following anecdote. 
. In that section of the frontier settlement to which 
Boone had removed, where unhewn log cabins, and 
hewn log houses, were interspersed among the burnt 
stumps, surrounded by a potato patch and cornfield, 
as the traveller pursued his cow-path through the 
deep forest, there was an intersection, or more prop- 
erly concentration of wagon tracks, called the 
"Cross Roads," — a name which still designates a 
hundred frontier positions of a post office, black- 
smith's shop, and tavern. In the central point of 
this metropolis stood a large log building, before 
which a sign creaked in the wind, conspicuously let- 
tered "Store and Tavern." 

To this point, on the early part of a warm spring 
morning, a pedestrian stranger was seen approaching 
in the path leading from the east. One hand was 
armed with a walking stick, and the other carried a 
small bundle inclosed in a handkerchief. His aspect 
wa3 of a man, whose whole fortunes were in his 
walking stick and bundle. He was observed to eye 
the swinging sign with a keen recognition, inspiring 
2 



M LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 

such courage as the mariner feels on entering the 
desired haven. 

His dialect betrayed the stranger to be a native 
of Ireland. He sat down on the stoup, and asked in 
his own peculiar mode of speech, for cold water. A 
supply from the spring was readily handed him in a 
gourd. But with an arch pause between remon- 
strance and laughter, he added, that he thought cold 
water in a warm climate injurious to the stomach 
and begged that the element might be qualified witlf 
a little whisky. 

The whisky was handed him, and the usual con- 
versation ensued, during which the stranger inquired 
if a school-master was wanted in the settlement — or, 
as he was pleased to phrase it, a professor in the 
nigher branches of learning? It is inferred that the 
father of Boone was a person of distinction in the 
settlement, for to him did the master of the "Store 
and Tavern" direct the stranger of the staff and 
bundle for information. 

The direction of the landlord to enable him to 
find the house of Mr. Boone, was a true specimen 
of similar directions in the frontier settlements of the 
present; and they have often puzzled clearer heads 
than that of the Irish school-master. 

"Step this way," said he,"and I will direct you 
there, so that you cannot mistake ycur way. Turn 
down that right hand road, and keep on it till you 
cross the dry branch — then turn to your left, and go 
up a hill — then take a lane to your right, which will 
bring you to an open field — pass this, and you will 
come to a path with three forks — take the middle 



LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 15 

fork, and it will lead you through the woods in sight 
of Mr. Boone's plantation." 

The Irishman lost his way, invoked the saints, and 
cursed his director for his medley of directions many 
a time, before he stumbled at length on Mr. Boone's 
house. He was invited to sit down and dine, in the 
simple backwoods phrase, which is still the passport 
to the most ample hospitality. 

After dinner, the school-master made known his 
vocation, and his desire to find employment. To 
obtain a qualified school-master in those days, and in 
such a place, was no easy business. This scarcity 
of supply precluded close investigation of fitness. In 
a word, the Irishman was authorized to enter upon 
the office of school-master of the settlement. We 
have been thus particular in this description, because 
it was the way in which most teachers were then 
employed. 

It will not be amiss to describe the school-house; 
for it stood as a sample of thousands of west coun y 
school-houses of the present day. It was of lo f , 
after the usual fashion of the time and place. Jd 
dimension, it was spacious and convenient. Tl<p, 
chimney was peculiarly ample, occupying one entire 
side of the whole building, which was an exact 
square. Of course, a log could be "snaked" to the 
fire-place as long as the building, and a file of boys 
thirty feet in length, could all stand in front of the 
fire on a footing of the most democratic equality. 
Sections of logs cut out here and there, admitted 
light and air instead of windows* The surrounding 
forest furnished ample supplies of fuel, A spring at 



HJ MnS OF DANIEL BOONE. 

hand, furnished with various gourds, quenched the 
frequent thirst of the pupils. A ponderous punch- 
eon door, swinging on substantial wooden hinges, and 
shutting with a wooden latch, completed the appen- 
dages of this primeval seminary. 

To this central point might he seen wending from 
the woods, in every direction of the compass, flaxen- 
headed boys and girls, clad in homespun, brushing 
away the early dews, as they hied to the place, 
where the Hibernian, clothed in his brief authority, 
sometimes perpetrated apphcations of birch without 
rhyme or reason ; but much oftener allowed his au- 
thority to be trampled upon, according as the severe 
or loving humor prevailed. This vacillating admin- 
istration was calculated for any result, rather than 
securing the affectionate respect of the children. 
Scarcely the first quarter had elapsed, before mate- 
rials for revolt had germinated under the very throne 
of the school-master. 

Young Boone, at this time, had reached the second 
stage of teaching the young idea how to shoot. His 
satchel already held paper marked with those myste- 
rious hieroglyphics, vulgarly called pot-hooks^ inten- 
ded to be gradually transformed to those clerkly 
characters, which are called hand-writing. 

The master's throne was a block of a huge tree, 
and could not be said, in any sense, to be a cushion 
of down. Of course, by the time he had heard the 
first lessons of the morning, the master was accustom- 
ed to let loose his noisy subjects, to wanton and 
bound on the grass, while he took a turn abroad to 
refresh himself from his wearying duties. While he 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 17 

was thus unbending his mind, the observant urchins 
had remarked, that he always directed his walk to a 
deep grove not far distant. They had, possibly, 
divined that the unequal tempers of his mind, and 
his rapid transitions from good nature to tyrannical 
moroseness, and the reverse, were connected with 
these promenades. The curiosity of young Boone 
had been partially excited. An opportunity soon 
oflered to gratify it. 

Having one day received the accustomed permis- 
sion to retire a few minutes from school, the darting 
of a squirrel across a fallen tree, as he went abroad, 
awakened his ruling passion. He sprang after the 
nimble animal, until he found himself at the very 
spot, where he had observed his school-master to 
pause in his promenades. His attention was arres- 
ted by observing a kind of opening under a little 
arbor, thickly covered with a mat of vines. Think- 
mg, perhaps, that it was the retreat of some animal, 
he thrust in his hand, and to his surprise drew forth 
a glass bottle, partly full of whisky. The enigma 
of his master's walks and inequalities of temper stood 
immediately deciphered. After the reflection of a 
moment, he carefully replaced the bottle in its posi- 
tion, and returned to his place in school. In the 
evening he communicated his discovery and the re- 
sult of his meditations to the larger boys of the school 
on their way home. They were ripe for revolt, and 
the issue of their caucus follows: 

They were sufficiently acquainted with fever and 
ague, to have experimented the nature of tartar 
emetic. They procured a bottle exactly like the 
2* 



IS LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

master's, filled with whisky, in wliich a copious quan- 
tity of emetic had been dissolved. Early in the 
morning, they removed the school-master's bottle, 
and replaced it by theirs, and hurried back to their 
places, panting with restrained curiosity, and a de- 
sire to see what results would come from their med" 
ical mixture. 

The accustomed hour for intermission came. The 
master took his usual promenade, and the children 
hastened back with uncommon eagerness to resume 
their seats and their lessons. The countenance of 
the master alternately red and pale, gave portent of 
an approaching storm. 

"Recite your grammar lesson," said he, in a grow 
ling tone, to one of the older boys. 

"How many parts of speech are there?" 

"Seven, sir," timidly answered the boy. 

"Seven, you numscull! is that the way you get 
your lesson?" Forthwith descended a shower of 
blows on his devoted head. 

"On what continent is Ireland ?" said he, turning 
from him in wrath to another boy. The boy saw 
the shower pre-determined to fall, and the medicine 
giving evident signs of having taken effect. Before 
he could answer, "I reckon on the continent of Eng- 
land," he was gathering an ample tithe of drubbing. 

"Come and recite your lesson in arithmetic?" said 
he to Boone, in a voice of thunder. The usually 
rubicund face of the Irishman was by this time a 
deadly pale. Slate in hand, the docile lad presert- 
ed himself before his master. 

"Take six from nine,and what remain?*" 



LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 19 

"Three, sir." 

"True. That will answer for whole numbers, 
now for your fractions. Take three-quarters from 
an integer, and what rem.ains?" 

"The whole." 

"You blockhead! you numscull!" exclaimed the 
master, as the strokes fell like a hail shower; "let 
me hear you demonstrate that ." 

"If I subtract one bottle of whisky, and replace 
it with one in which I have mixed an emetic, will 
not the whole remain, if nobody drinks it?" 

By this time the medicine was taking fearful ef- 
fect. The united acclamations and shouts of the 
children, and the discovery of the compounder of 
his medicament, in no degree tended to soothe the 
infuriated master. Young Boone, having paid for 
his sport hy an ample drubbing, seized the oppor- 
tune moment, floored his master, already weak and 
dizzy, sprang from the door, and made for the woods. 
The adventure was soon blazoned. A consultation 
of the patrons of the school was held. Though 
young Boone was reprimanded, the master was dis- 
missed. 

This is all the certain information we possess, 
touching the training of young Boone, in the lore of 
books and schools. Though he never afterwards 
could be brought back to the restraint of the walls 
of a school, it is well known, that in some way, in 
after life, he possessed himself of the rudiments of a 
common education. His love for hunting and the 
woods now became an absorbing passion. He pos- 
sessed a dog and a fowling piece, and with these he 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 



would range whole days alone through the woods, 
often with no other apparent object, than the simple 
pleasure of these lonely wanderings. 

One morning he was observed as usual, to throw 
the band, that suspended his shot bag, over one 
shoulder, and his gun over the other, and go forth 
accompanied by his dog. Night came, but to the 
astonishment and alarm of his parents, the boy, as 
yet scarcely turned of fourteen, came not. Another 
day and another night came, and passed, and still 
he returned not. The nearest neighbors, sympa- 
thizing with the distressed parents, who considered 
him lost, turned out, to aid in searching for him. 
After a long and weary search, at a distance of a 
league from any plantation, a smoke was seen ari- 
sing from a temporary Jiovel of sods and branches, 
in which the astonished father found his child, appa- 
rently most comfortably established is his new ex- 
periment of house-keeping. Numerous skins of wild 
animals were stretched upon his cabin, as trophies 
of his hunting prowess. Ample fragments of their 
flesh were either roasting or preparing for cookery. 
It may be supposed, that such a lad would be the 
theme of wonder and astonishment to the other boys 
of his age. 
s/ At this early period, he hesitated not to hunt 
wolves, and even bears and panthers. His exploits 
of this kind were the theme of general interest in 
the vicinity. Many of them are recorded. But we 
pass over most of them, in our desire to hasten to 
the exploits of his maturer years. We select a sin- 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. *-** 



gle one of the most unquestionable character, as a 
sample for the rest. 

In company with some of his young companions, 
he undertook a hunting excursion, at a considerable 
distance from the settlements. Near night-fall, the 
group of young Nimrods were alarmed with a sharp 
cry from the thick woods. A panther! whispered 
the affrighted lads, in accents scarcely above thei^ 
breath, through fear, that their voice would betra 
them. The scream of this animal is harsh, and 
grating, and one of the most truly formidable of 
forest sounds. 

The animal, when pressed, does not shrink from 
encountering a man, and often kills him, unless he 
is fearless and adroit in his defence. All the com- 
panions of young Boone fled from the vicinity, as 
fast as possible. Not so the subject of our narra- 
tive. He coolly surveyed the animal, that in turn 
eyed him, as the cat does a mouse, when preparing 
to spring upon it. Levelling his rifle, and takmg 
deliberate aim, he lodged the bullet in the heart o< 
the fearful animal, at the very moment it was m the 
act to spring upon him. It was a strikijig instance 
of that pecuhar self-possession, which constituted 
the most striking trait in his character in after hfe. 

Observing these early propensities for the life of 
a hunter in his son, and land having become dear 
and game scarce in the neighborhood where he lived, 
Boone^s father formed the design of removing to re- 
mote forests, not yet disturbed by Ihe sound of the 
axe, or broken by frequent clearings; and having 
heard a good account of the country bordering upon 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 23 

the Yadkin river, in North CaroHna, he resolved to 
remove thither. This river, which is a stream of 
considerable size, has its source among the moun- 
tains in the north-east part of North Carolina, and 
pursues a beautiful meandering course through that 
state until it enters South Carolina. After watering 
the eastern section of the latter state, it reaches the 
ocean a few miles above the mouth of the Santee. 

Having sold his plantation, on a fine April morn- 
ing he set forth for the land of promise — wife, chil- 
dren, servants, flocks, and herds, forming a patriar- 
chal caravan through the wilderness. No procession 
bound to the holy cities of Mecca or Jerusalem, 
was ever more joyful; for to them the forest was an 
asylum. Overhung by the bright blue sky, envelo- 
ped in verdant forests full of game, nought cared 
they for the absence of houses with their locks and 
latches. Their nocturnal caravansary was a clear 
cool spring; their bed the fresh turf. Deer and tur- 
keys furnished their viands — hunger the richest sau- 
ces of cookery; and fatigue and untroubled spirits a 
repose unbroken by dreams. Such were the primi- 
tive migrations of the early settlers of our country. 
We love to meditate on them, for we have shared 
them. We have fed from this table in the wilder- 
ness. We have shared this mirth. We have heard 
the tinkle of the bells of the flocks and herds gra- 
zing among the trees. We have seen the moon 
rise and the stars twinkle upon this forest scene; and 
the remembrance has more than once marred the 
pleasure of journeyings in the midst of civilization 
nnd the refinements of luxury. 



84 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

The frontier country in which the family settled 
was as yet an unbroken forest; and being at no great 
distance from the eastern slope of the Alleghanies, 
in the valleys of which game was abundant, it af- 
forded fine range both for pasture and hunting. 
These forests had, moreover, the charm of novelty, 
and the game had not yet learned to fear the rifles 
of the new settlers. It need hardly be added that 
the spirits of young Boone exulted in this new hun- 
ter's paradise. The father and the other sons settled 
down quietly to the severe labor of making a farm, 
assigning to Daniel the occupation of his rifle, as 
aware that it was the only one he could be indu- 
ced to follow; and probably from the experience, 
that in this way he could contribute more effectually 
to the establishment, than either of them in the pur 
suits of husbandry. 

An extensive farm was soon opened. The table 
was always amply supplied with venison, and was 
the seat of ample and unostentatious hospitality. 
The peltries of the young hunter yielded all the 
money which such an establishment required, and 
the interval between this removal and the coming 
of age of young Boone, was one of health, plenty, 
and privacy. 

But meanwhile this settlement began to experi- 
ence the pressure of that evil which Boone always 
considered the greatest annoyance of life. The 
report of this family's prosperity had gone abroad. 
The young hunter's fame in his new position, at- 
tracted other immigrants to come and fix them- 
selves in the vicinity. The smoke of new cabins 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 25 

find clearings went up to the sky. The baying of 
other do^s. and the crash of distant falhng trees 
began to be heard; and painful presentiments al- 
ready filled the bosom of young Boone, that this 
ahode would shortly be more pressed upon than 
Ihat he had left. He was compelled, however, to 
idmit, that if such an order of things brings disad- 
^rantages, it has also its benefits. 

A thriving farmer, by the name of Bryan, had set- 
tled at no great distance from Mr. Boone, by whose 
establishment the young hunter, now at the period 
of life when other thoughts than those of the chase 
of wild game are sometimes apt to cross the mind, 
was accustomed to pass. 

This farmer had chosen a most beautiful spot for 
his residence. The farm occupied a space of some 
hundred acres on a gentle eminence, crested with 
yellow poplars and laurels. Around it rolled a moun- 
tain stream. So -beautiful was the position and so 
many its advantages, that young Boone used often 
to pause in admiration, on his way to the deeper 
woods beyond the verge of human habitation. "VVlio 
can say that the same dreamy thoughts that inspi- 
red the pen of the eloquent Rousseau, did not occupy 
the mind of the young hunter as he passed this rural 
abode? We hope we shall not be suspected of a 
wish to offer a tale of romance, as we relate, how 
the mighty hunter of wild beasts and men was him- 
self subdued, and that by the most timid and gentle 
of beings. We put down the facts as we find them 
recorded, and our conscience is quieted, by finding 
3 



26 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

them perfectly natural to the time, place, and cir- 
cumstances. 

Young Boone was one night engaged in a fire 
hunt, with a young friend. Their course led them 
to the deeply timbered bottom that skirted the stream 
vhich wound round this pleasant plantation. That 
he reader may have an idea what sort of a pursuit 
A was that young Boone was engaged in, during an 
event so decisive of his future fortunes, we present 
a brief sketch of a night Jire hunt. Two persons 
are indispensable to it. The horseman that pre- 
cedes, bears on his shoulder what is called a Jire 
pan, full of blazing pine knots, which casts a bright 
and flickering glare far through the forest. The 
second follows at some distance, with his rifle prepa 
red for action. No spectacle is more impressive 
than this of pairs of hunters, thus kindling the for- 
est into a glare. The deer, reposing quietly in his 
thicket, is awakened by the approaching cavalcade, 
and instead of flying from the portentous brilliance, 
remains stupidly gazing upon if, as if charmed to 
the spot. The animal is betrayed to its doom by 
the gleaming of its fixed and innocent eyes. This 
cruel mode of securing a fatal shot, is called in hun- 
""er's phrase, shining the eyes. 

The two young men reached a corner cf the far- 
mer's field at an early hour in the evening. Young 
Boone gave the customary signal to his mounted 
companion preceding him, to stop, an indication 
that he had shined the eyes of a deer. Boone dis- 
mounted, and fastened his horse to a tree. Ascer- 
taining that his rifle was in order, he advanced can- 



LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 27 

tiously behind a covert of bushes, lo reach the right 
distance for a shot. The deer is remarkable for the 
beauty of its eyes when thus shined. The mild 
brilliance of the two orbs was distinctly visible. 
Whether warned by a presentiment, or arrested by 
ii palpitation, and strange feelings within, at noting 
a new expression in the blue and dewy lights that 
gleamed to his heart, we say not. But the unerring 
rifle fell, and a rustling told him that the game had 
fled. Something whispered him it was not a deer; 
and yet the fleet step, as the game bounded away, 
might easily be mistaken for tliat of the light-footed 
animal. A second thought impelled him to pursue 
the rapidly retreating game; and he sprang away 
in the direction of the sound, leaving his companion 
to occupy himself as he might. The fugitive had 
the advantage of a considerable advance of him, and 
apparently a better knowledge of the localities of 
the place. But the hunter was perfect in all his 
field exercises, and scarcely less fleet footed than a 
deer; and he gained rapidly on the object of his 
pursuit, which advanced a little distance parallel 
with the field-fence, and then, as if endowed with 
the utmost accomplishment of gymnastics, cleared 
the fence at a leap. The hunter, embarrassed with 
his rifle and accoutrements, was driven to the slow 
and humihating expedient of climbing it. But an 
outline of the form of the fugitive, fleeting through 
the shades in the direction of the house, assured 
him that he had mistaken the species of the game. 
His heart throbbed from a hundred sensations; and 
among them an apprehension of the consequences 



im LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

that would have resulted from discharging his nile, 
when he had first shined those liquid blue ejes. 
Seeing that the fleet game made straight in the 
direction of the house, he said to himself, "I will 
see the pet deer in its lair;" and he directed his 
steps to the same place. Half a score of dogs 
opened their barking upon him, as he approached 
the house, and advertised the master that a strange 
was approaching. Having hushed the dogs, an 
learned the name of his visitant, he introduced hin 
to his family, as the son of their neighbor, Boone. 

Scarce had the first words of introduction been 
uttered, before the opposite door opened, and a boj 
apparently of seven, and a girl of sixteen, rushed ic, 
panting for breath and seeming in affright. 

"Sister went down to the river, and a painter 
chased her, and she is almost scared to death," ex- 
claimed the boy. 

The ruddy, flaxen-haired girl stood full in view of 
her terrible pursuer, leaning upon his ri^c, and sur- 
veying her with the most eager admiration. "Re- 
becca, this is young Boone, son of our neighbor," 
was their laconic introduction. Both were young, 
beautiful, and at the period when the affections exer- 
cise their most energetic influence. The circum- 
stances of the introduction were favorable to the 
result, and the young hunter felt that the eyes of the 
deer had shined his bosom as fatally as his rifle shot 
had ever the innocent deer of the thickets. She, 
too, when she saw the high, open, bold forehead; 
clear, keen, and yet gentle and affectionate e^Q 
—the firm front, and the visible impress of decision 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 



29 



and fearlessness of the hunter— when she interpreted 
a look, which said as distinctly as looks could say it, 
'how terrible it would have been to have fired l" 
can hardly be supposed to have regarded him with 
mdifterence. Nor can it be wondered at that she 
saw in him her beau ideal of excellence and beauty. 
The inhabitants of cities, Avho live in mansions, and 
read novels stored with unreal pictures of Ufe and 
the heart, are apt to imagine that love, with all its 
golden illusions, is reserved exclusively for them. It 
is a most egregious mistake. A model of ideal 
beauty and perfection is woven in almost every 
youthful heart, of the brightest and most brilliant 
threads that compose the web of existence. It may 
not be said that this forest maiden was deeply and 
foolishly smitten at first sight. All reasonable time 
and space were granted to the claims of maidenly 
modesty. As for,Boone, he was incurably wounded 
by her, whose eyes he had shined, and as he was re- 
markable for the backwoods attribute of nexer being 
beaten out of his track, he ceased not to woo, until he 
gained the heart of Rebecca Bryan. In a word, he 
court^aiiCT successfully, and they were married. 
3* 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 



CHAPTER II. 



Boone removes to the head waters of the Yadkin river — He meets with 
Finley, who had crossed the mountains into Tennessee — They agroi 
to explore the wilderness west of the Alleghanies together. 

After his marriage, Boone's first step was to con 
sider where he should find a place, in which he could 
unite the advantages of fields to cultivate, and range 
for hunting. True to the impulse of his nature, he 
plunged deeper into the wilderness, to realize this 
dream of comfort and happiness. Leaving his w4fe, 
he visited the unsettled regions of North Carolina, 
and selected a spot near the head waters of the Yad- 
kin, for his future home. 

The same spirit that afterwards operated to take 
Mrs. Boone to Kentucky, now led her to leave her 
friends, and follow her husband to a region where 
she was an entire stranger. Men change their 
place of abode from ambition or interest; women 
from affection. In the course of a few months, Dan- 
iel Boone had reared comfortable cabins upon a 
pleasant eminence at a little distance from the river 
bank, inclosed a field, and gathered around him the 
means of abundance and enjoyment. His dwelhng, 
though of rude exterior, offered the weary traveller 
shelter, a cheerful fire, and a plentiful board, graced 
with the most cordial welcome. The faces that 
looked on him were free from the cloud of care, the 
constraint of ceremony, and the distrust and fear, 
with which men learn to regard one another in the 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 31 

midst of the rivalry, competition, and scramble of 
populous cities. The spoils of the chase gave vari- 
ety to his table, and afforded Boone an excuse for 
devoting his leisure hours to his favorite pursuit. 
The country around spread an ample field for its 
exercise, as it was almost untouched by the axe of 
the woodsman. 

The lapse of a few years — passed in the useful 
and unpretending occupations of the husbandman — 
brought no exteinal change to Daniel Boone, deser 
ving of record. His step was now the firm tread of 
sober manhood; and his purpose tlie result of matu- 
red reflection. This influence of the progress of 
time, instead of obliterating the original impress of 
his character, only sunk it deeper. The dwellings 
of immigrants were springing up in all directions 
around. Inclosures again began to sunound him 
on every hand, shutting him out from his accustomed 
haunts in the depths of the forest shade. He saw 
cultivated fields stretching over large extents of 
country; and in the distance, villages and towns; and 
was made sensible of their train of forms, and laws, 
and restrictions, and buts, and bounds, gradually 
approaching his habitation. He determined again 
to leave them far behind. His resolve was made, 
but he had not decided to what point he would turn. 
Circumstances soon occurred to terminate his inde- 
cision. 

As early as 1760, the country west of the Cum- 
berland mountains was considered by the inhabitants 
of Carolina and Virginia, as involved in something 
of the same obscurity wl ich lay over the American 



3^ LIFE OF DA.NIEL BOONK. 

continent, after its first discovery by Columbus. 
Those who spread their sails to cross the sea, and 
find new skies, a new soil, and men in a new world, 
were not deemed more daring hy their brethren at 
home, than the few hardy adventurers, who struck 
into the pathless forests stretching along the frontier 
settlements of the western country, were estimated 
by their friends and neighbors. Even the most in- 
formed and intelligent, where information and in- 
telligence were cultivated, knew so little of the im- 
mense extent of country, now designated as the 
"Mississippi Valley," that a book, published near 
the year 1800, in Philadelphia or New York, by a 
writer of talent and standing, speaks of the many 
mouths of the Missouri, as entering the Mississippi 
far below the Ohio* 

The simple inmates of cabins, in the remote re- 
gion bordering on the new country, knew still less 
about it; as they had not penetrated its wilderness, 
and were destitute of that general knowledge which 
prevents the exercise of the exaggerations of vague 
conjecture. There was, indeed, ample room for the 
indulgence of speculation upon the features by 
which the unexplored land was characterized. Its 
mountains, plains, and streams, animals, and men, 
were yet to be discovered and named. It might be 
found the richest land under the sun, exhaustless in 
fertility, yielding the most valuable productions, and 
unfailing in its resources. It was possible it would 
prove a sterile desert. Imagination could not but 
expatiate in this unbounded field and unexplored wil- 
derness; and there are few persons entirely secure 



LITE OF DANIEL BOONE. 33 

kom the influence of imagination. The real dan- 
ger attending the first exploration of a country filled 
with wild animals and savages; and the difficulty of 
carrying a sufficient supply of ammunition to pro- 
cure food, during a long journey, necessarily made 
on foot, had prevented any attempt of the kind. 
The Alleghany mountains had hitherto stood an un 
surmounted barrier between the Atlantic country 
and the shores of the beautiful Ohio. 

Not far from this period, Dr. Walker, an intelli- 
gent and enterprising Virginian, collected a small 
party, and actually crossed the mountains at the 
Cumberland Gap, after traversing Powell's valley. 
One of his leading inducements to this tour, was the 
hope of making botanical discoveries. The party 
crossed Cumberland river, and pursued a north-east 
course over the highlands, which give rise to the 
sources of the lesser tributaries of the important 
streams that water the Ohio valley. They reached 
Big Sandy, after enduring the privations and fatigue 
mcident to such an undertaking. From this point 
they commenced their return home. On reaching 
t, they showed no inclination to resume their at- 
tempt, although the information thus gained respec- 
ting the country, presented it in a very favorable 
light. These first adventurers wanted the hardi- 
nood, unconquerable fortitude, and unwavering pur- 
pose, which nothing but death could arrest, that 
marked the pioneers, who followed in their footsteps. 
Some time elapsed before a second exploring ex- 
pedition was set on foot. The relations of what 
these men had seen on the other side of the moun- 



m 



LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 



tains had assumed the form of romance, rather than 
reahtj. Hunters, alone or in pairs, now ventured 
to extend their range into the skirts of the wilder- 
ness, thus gradually enlarging the sphere of definite 
conceptions, respecting the country heyond it. 

In 1767, a backwoodsman of the name of Finley, 
of North Carolina, in company witli a few kindred 
spirits resembling him in character, advanced still 
farther into the interior of the land of promise. It 
is probable, they chose the season of flowers for their 
enterprise; as on the return of this httle band, a de- 
scription of the soil they had trodden, and the sights 
they had seen, went abroad, that charmed all ears, 
excited all imaginations, and dwelt upon every 
tongue. Well might they so describe. Their course 
lay through a portion of Tennessee. There is noth. 
ing grand or imposing in scenery— nothing striking 
or picturesque in cascades and pi^cipitous declivities 
of mountains covered with woods— nothing roman- 
tic and delightful in deep and sheltered valleys, 
through which wind clear streams, which is not 
found in this first region they traversed. The moun- 
tains here stretch along in continuous ridges— and 
there shoot up into elevated peaks. On the sum- 
mits of some, spread plateaus, which aflford the most 
commanding prospects, and offer all advantages for 
cultivation, overhung by the purest atmosphere. No 
words can picture the secluded beauty of some of 
the vales bordering the creeks and small streams, 
which dash transparent as air over rocks, moss-cov- 
ered and time-worn—walled in by the precipitous 



filFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 35 

sides of mountains, down which pour numberless 
waterfalls. 

The soil is rich beyond any tracts of the same 
character in the west. Beautiful white, gray, and 
red marbles are found here; and sometimes fine 
specimens of rock-crystals. Salt springs abound. 
It has lead mines; and iron ore is no where more 
abundant. Its salt-petre caves are most astonishing 
curiosities. One of them has been traced ten miles. 
Another, on a high point of Cumberland mountain, 
has a perpendicular descent, the bottom of which 
has never been sounded. They abound in prodi- 
gious vaulted apartments and singular chambers, the 
roofs springing up into noble arches, or running 
along for miles in regular oblong excavations. The 
gloomy grandeur, produced by the faint illumina- 
tion of torches in these immense subterranean retreats, 
may be imagined, but not described. Springs 
rise, and considerable streams flow through them, 
on smooth limestone beds. 

This is the very home of subterranean wonders, 
showing the noblest caves in the world. In com- 
parison with them, the celebrated one at Antiparos 
is but a slight excavation. Spurs of the mountains, 
called the "Enchanted Mountains,'" show traces im- 
pressed in the solid limestone, of the footsteps of 
men, horses, and other animals, as distinctly as 
though they had been made upon clay mortar. In 
places the tracks are such as would be made by J get, 
that had sHdden upon soft clay in descending de- 
clivities. 

P-or^?rri*onc remains of animals are found neai im 



J56 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

salines. Whole trees are discovered completely 
petrified ; and to crown the list of wonders, in turn 
in^ up the soil, graves are opened, which contain 
the skeletons of figures, who must have been of ma- 
ture age. Paintings of the sun, moon, animals, and 
serpents, on high and apparently inaccessible cliffs, 
out of question the work of former ages, in colors as 
fresh as if recently laid on, and in some instances, 
just and ingenious in dehneation, are a subject of 
untiring speculation. Even the streams in this re- 
gion of wonders have scooped out for themselves 
immensely deep channels hemmed in by perpendic- 
ular walls of hmestonf', sometimes springing up to 
a height of three or four hundred feet. As the 
traveller looks down upon the dark waters rolling 
so far beneath him, seeming to flow in a subterra- 
nean world, he cannot but feel impressions of the 
grandeur of nature stealing over him. 

It is not to be supposed, that persons, whose sole 
object in entering the country was to explore it, 
would fail to note these surprising traces of past 
races, the beautiful diversity of the aspect of the 
country, or these wonders of nature exhibited on 
every hand. Being neither incurious nor incom- 
petent observers, their delineations were graphic 
and vivid. 

"Their teacliers liad been woods and rills, 
The silence, that is in the starry sky; 
The sleep, that is among the lonely hills." 

They advanced into Kentucky so far, as to nil 
their imaginations with the fresh and luxunant 
beauty of its lawns, its rich cane-brakes and fl^ower- 



'■t 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. Zt 

ing forests To them it was a terrestrial paradise 
for it was full of game. Deer, elk, bears, buffaloes, 
panthers, wolves, wild-cats, and foxes, abounded in 
the thick tangles of the green cane; and in the 
open woods, pheasants, partridges, and turkeys, were 
.as plenty as domestic fowls in the old settlements. 

Such were the materials, from which these hun- 
ters, on their return formed descriptions that fixed in 
the remembrance, and operated upon the fancy of 
all who heard. A year after Finley's return, his 
love of wandering led him into the vicinity of Dan- 
iel Boone. They met, and the hearts of these kin- 
dred spirits at once warmed towards each other. 
Finley related his adventures, and painted the de- 
lights of Kttin-tuck-kee — for such was its Indian name. 
Boone had but few hair-breath escapes to recount, 
in comparison with his new companion. But it 
can readily be imagined, that a burning sensation 
rose in his breast, like that of the celebrated pain- 
ter Correggio, when low-born, untaught, poor and 
destitute of every advantage, save that of splendid 
native endowment, he stood before the work of the 
immortal Raphael, and said, "I too am a painter!" 
Boone's purpose was fixed. In a region, such as 
Finley described, far in advance of the wearying 
monotony of a life of inglorious toil, he would have 
space to roam unwitnessed, undisturbed by those of 
his own race, whose only thought was to cut down 
trees, at least for a period of some years. We wish 
not to be understood to laud these views, as wise or 
just. In the order of things, however, it was neces- 

sary^ that men like Finley and Boone, and their 
4 



38 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 



companions, should precede in the wilderness, to 
prepare the way for the multitudes who would soon 
follow. It is probable, that no motives but those 
ascribed to them, would have induced these adven- 
turers to face the hardships and extremes of suffering 
from exposure and hunger, and the peril of life, 
which they literally carried in their hand. 

No feeling, but a devotion to their favorite pur* 
suits and modes of life, stronger than the fear of 
abandonment, in the interminable and pathless 
woods, to all forms of misery and deatli, could ever 
have enabled them to persist in braving the danger 
and distress that stared them in the face at every 
advancing step. 

Finley was invited by Boone permanently to 
share the comfort of his fire-side, — for it was now 
winter. It needs no exercise of fancy to conjecture 
their subjects of conversation during the long eve* 
ning. The bitter wintry wind burst upon their 
dweUing only to enhance the cheerfulness of the 
blazing fire in the huge chimneys, by the contrast 
of the inclemency of nature without. 

It does not seem natural, at first thought, that a 
season, in which nature shows herself stern and 
unrelenting, should be chosen, as that in which 
plans are originated and matured for settling the 
destiny of life. But it was during this winter, that 
Boone and Finley arranged all the preliminaries of 
their expedition, and agreed to meet on the first of 
May in the coming spring; and with some others, 
whom they hoped to induce to join them for greater 



P 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 39 

strength and safety, to set forth together on an ex- 
pedition into Kentucky. 

Boone's array of arguments, to influence those 
whom he mshed to share this daring enterprise 
with him, was tinctured with the coloring of rude 
poetry. "They would ascend," he said, "the un- 
named mountains, whose green heads rose not far 
from their former hunting-grounds, since fences and 
inclosures had begun to surround tliem on all sides, 
shutting up the hunter from his free range and sup- 
port. The deer had fled from the sound of the axe, 
which levelled the noble trees under whose shade 
they could repose from the fatigues of pursuit. 
The springs and streams among the hills were bared 
to the fierce sun, and would soon dry up and dis- 
appear. Soon *the horn would no more wake them 
up in the morn.' The sons of their love and pride, 
instead of being trained hunters, with a free, bold 
step, frank kindness, true honor, and a courage that 
knew not fear, would become men to whom the 
pleasures and dangers of their fathers would seem 
an idle tale." The prospect spreading on the oth- 
er side of the mountains, he pictured as filled with 
all the images of abundance and freedom that could 
enter the thoughts of the hunter. The paintings 
were drawn from nature, and the words few and 
simple, that spoke to the hearts of these sons of the 
forest. "The broad woods," he pursued, "would 
stretch beneath their eyes, when the mountain sum- 
mits were gained, one extended tuft of blossoms. 
The cane was a tangle of luxuriance, affording the 
Hchest pastures. The only paths through it were 



40 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

those made by buffaloes and bears. In the shelter 
ed glades, turkeys and large wild birds were so 
abundant, that a hunter could supply himself in an 
hour for the wants of a week. They would not 
be found like the lean and tough birds in the old 
settlements, that lingered around the clearings and 
stumps of the trees, in the topmost of whose branch- 
es the fear of man compelled them to rest, but 
young and full fed. The trees in this new land 
were of no stinted or gnarled growth, but shot up 
tall, straight, and taper. The yellow poplar here 
threw up into the air a column of an hundred feet 
shaft in a contest with the sycamore for the pre-em- 
inence of the woods. Their wives and children 
would remam safe in their present homes, until the 
first dangers and fatigues of the new settlement 
had been met and overcome. When their homes 
were selected, and their cabins built, they would 
return and bring them out to their new abodes. 
The outward journey could be regulated by the un 
controlled pleasure of their more frail travellers. 
What guardians could be more truq^than their hus- 
bands with their good rifles and the skill and de- 
termination to use them? They would depend, not 
upon circumstances, but upon themselves. The 
babes would exult in the arms of their mothers 
from the inspiring influence of the fresh air; and at 
night a cradle from the hollow tree would rock 
them to a healthful repose. The older children, 
training to the pursuits and pleasures of a life in 
the woods, and acquiring vigor of body and mind 
with every day, in their season of prime, would feel 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 41 

no shame that they had hearts softened by the warm 
current of true feeling. When their own silver 
hairs lay thin upon the brow, and their eye was 
dim, and sounds came confused on their ear, and 
their step faltered, and their form bent, they would 
find consideration, and care, and tenderness from 
children, whose breasts wel^*e not steeled by ambi- 
tion, nor hardened by avarice; in whom the beau- 
tiful influences of the indulgence of none but natu- 
ral desires and pure oiTections would not be dead- 
ened by the selfishness, vanity, and iear of ridicule, 
that are the harvest of what is called civilized and 
cultivated life." Such at least, in aft* r life, were the 
contrasts that Boone used to preseny vtween social 
life and that of the woodsman 
4* 



VFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 43 



CHAPTER III. 

Boone, with Finley and others, start on their exploring expedition — 
Boone kills a panther in the night — Their progress over the moun- 
tains — They descend into the great valley — Description of the new 
country — Herds of buffaloes — Their wanderings in the wilderness. 

The first of May, 1769, Finley and Boone, with 
four others, whose names were Stewart, Holden, 
Mooney, and Cool, and who had pledged them- 
selves to the undertaking, were assembled at the 
house of Boone, in readiness to commence their 
journey. It may be imagined that all the neigh- 
bors gathered to witness their departure. A rifle, 
ammunition, and a light knapsack were all the bag- 
gage with which they dared encumber themselves. 
Provisions for a few days were bestowed along with 
the clothing deemed absolutely necessary for com- 
V fort upon the long route. No shame could attach 
to the manhood and courage of Daniel Boone from 
the fact that tears were said to have rushed to his 
eyes, as he kissed his wife and children before he 
turned from his door for the last time for months, 
and perhaps forever. The nature of the pioneer 
was as gentle and affectionate as it was firm and 
persevering. He had power, however, to send 
back the unbidden gush to its source, and forcibly 
to withdraw his mind from enervating thoughts. 
Beside, the natural elasticity of his temperament 
and the buoyancy of his character came to liis 
aid. The anticipation of new and strange inci- 



44 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONl^ 

dents operated to produce in the minds of the tr» 
vellers, from the commencement of the enterprise, a 
kind of wild pleasure. 

With alert and vigorous steps they pursued a 
north-west course, and were soon beyond the reach 
of the most distant view of their homes. This day 
and night, and the succeeding one, the scenes in 
view were familiar; but in the course of the four or 
five that followed, all vestiges of civilized habitancy 
had disappeared. The route lay through a solitary 
and trackless wilderness. Before them rose a line 
of mountains, shooting up against the blue of the 
horizon, in peaks and elevations of all forms. The 
slender store of food with which they had set out, 
was soon exhausted. To obtain a fresh supply was 
the first and most pressing want. Accordingly, a 
convenient place was selected, and a camp con- 
structed of logs and branches of trees, to keep out 
the dew and rain. The whole party joined in this 
preliminary arrangement. When it was so far 
completed, as to enable a part to finish it before 
night-fall, part of the company took their rifles ana 
went in different directions in pursuit of game. 
They returned in time for supper, with a couple of 
deer and some wild turkeys. Those, whose business 
it was to finish the camp, had made a generous fire 
and acquired keen appetites for the coming feast. 
The deer were rapidly dressed, so far at least as to 
furnish a supper of venison. It had not been long 
finished, and the arrangements for the night made, 
before the clouds, which had been gathering black- 
ness for some hours, rolled up in immense folds from 



XJFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 45 

the point, whence was heard the sudden burst of a 
furious wind. The hghtning darted from all quar- 
ters of the heavens. At one moment every object 
stood forth in a glare of dazzling light. The next 
the darkness might almost be felt. The rain fell in 
torrents, in one apparently unbroken sheet from the 
sky to the earth. The peals of tliunder roiled al- 
most unheard amid this deafening rush of waters. 
The camp of the travellers, erected with reference 
to the probability of such an occurrence, was pla- 
ced under the shelter of a huge tree, whose branch- 
es ran out laterally, and were of a thickness of fo- 
liage to be almost impervious to the rain. To this 
happy precaution of the woodsmen, they owed their 
escape from the drenching of the shower. They 
were not, perhaps, aware of the greater danger 
from lightning, to which their position had exposed 
them. 

As was the universal custom in cases like theirs, 
a watch was kept by two, while the others slept. 
The watches were relieved several times during 
the night. About midnight, Boone and Holden 
being upon the watch, the deep stillness abroad was 
broken by a shrill scream, resembling the shriek of 
a frightened woman or child more nearly than any 
other sound. The two companions had been sit- 
ting in a contemplative mood, listening to the deep 
breathing of the sleepers, when this cry came upon 
their ears. Both sprang erect. "What is that?" 
exclaimed Holden, who was not an experienced 
backwoodsman, in comparison with the others. 
"Hush!" answered Boone; "do not wake the rest. 



€» LIFS OF DANIEL BOONE. 

It is nothing but the cry of a panther. Take your 
gun and come with me," 

They stole gently from the camp and listened in 
breathless silence for a repetition of the cry. It 
was soon repeated, indicating the place where the 
animal was. Groping cautiously through the bushes 
in its direction, frequently stopping to look around, 
and holding their rifles ready for an instantaneous 
shot, they drew near the formidable animal. At 
length they discovered at a little distance before 
them, two balls that glared with an intense bright- 
ness, like that of living coals of fire. Boone, taking 
deliberate aim, in the best manner that the dark- 
ness would permit, discharged his rifle. The yell 
of pain from the animal, as it was heard leaping 
among the undergrowth in an opposite direction, 
satisfied Boone that his shot had taken sufficient ef- 
fect to prevent a second disturbance from it, at 
least for that night, and he returned to the camp 
with his companion. The sleepers, aroused by the 
report of the gun, were awaiting him. The ac- 
count of the adventure afforded speculation, touch- 
ing the point, whether the animal had been killed 
or would return again. Early the next morning, 
some were dispatched to bring in more game, while 
others prepared and dried wliat had already been 
obtained. The whole day was spent in this way, 
and the night following passed without any distur- 
bance. 

With the first light of the sun on the succeeding 
morning, they threw their knapsacks over their 
shoulders, and leaving their temporary shelter to 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 



41 



benefit any who might come after them, resumed 
their route. They had not proceeded far before 
an animal stretched on the ground attracted atten- 
tion. It was a dead panther. By comparing the 
size of the ball, which had killed it, with those 
used by Boone, the party were satisfied that this 
was the same animal he had shot the night after the 
storm. 

During the day they began the ascent of the ridge 
of the Alleghany, that had for some days bounded 
their view. The mountainous character of the 
country, for some miles, before the highest eleva- 
tions rose to sight, rendered the travelling laborious 
and slow. Several days were spent in this toilsome 
progress. Steep summits, impossible to ascend, im- 
peded their advance, compelhng them to turn aside, 
and attain the point above by a circuitous route. 
Again they were obhged to delay their journey for a 
day, in order to obtain a fresh supply of provisions. 
This was readily procured, as all the varieties oi 
game abounded on every side. 

The last crags and cuff's of the middle ridges ha- 
ving been scrambled over, on the following morning 
they stood on the summit of Cumberland mo intain, 
the farthest western spur of this fine of heightc. 
From this point the descent into the great western 
valley began. What a scene opened before them! 
A feehng of the subhme is inspired in every bosom 
susceptible of it, by a view from any point of these 
vast ranges, of the boundless forest valleys of the 
Ohio. It is a view more grand, more heart- stirring 
than that of the ocean. Illimitable extents of wood, 



48 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

and winding river courses spread before them like 
a large map. "Glorious country!" they exclaimed. 
Little did Boone dream that in fifty years, immense 
portions of it would pass from the domain of the hun- 
ter — that it would contain four milhons of freemen, 
and its waters be navigated by nearly two hundred 
steam boats, sweeping down these streams that noTV 
rolled through the unbroken forests before them. 
To them it stood forth an unexplored paradise of the 
hunter's imagination. 

After a long pause, in thoughts too deep for words, 
they began the descent, which was made in a much 
shorter time than had been required for the oppo- 
site ascent; and the explorers soon found themselves 
on the slopes of the subsiding hills. Here the hun- 
ter was in his element. To all the party but Finley, 
the buffaloes incidentally seen in small numbers in 
the valleys, were a novel and interesting sight. It 
had as yet been impossible to obtain a shot at them, 
from their distance or position. It may be imagined 
with what eagerness Boone sought an opportunity to 
make his first essay in this exciting and noble species 
of hunting. 

The first considerable drove came in sight on the 
IL fternoon of the day on which the travellers reached 
the foot of the mountains. The day had been one 
of the most beautiful of spring. The earth was 
covered with grass of the freshest green. The rich 
foliage of the trees, in its varied shading, furnished 
its portion of the loveliness of the surrounding land- 
scape. The light of the declining sun lay full on 
the scene of boundless solitude. The party had de- 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 49 

Bcended into a deep glen, which wound through the 
opening between the highhmds, still extending a 
little in advance of them. They pursued its course 
dntil it terminated in a beautiful little plain. Upon 
advancing into this, thej found themselves in an area 
of considerable extent, almost circular in form, 
bounded on one lialf its circumference by the line 
of hills, from among which they had just emerged. 
The other sections of the circle were marked by 
the fringe of wood that bordered a stream winding 
from the hills, at a considerable distance above. 
The buffaloes advanced from the skirt of wood, and 
the plain was soon filled by the moving mass of these 
huge animals. 

The exploring adventurers perceived themselvei 
m danger of what has more than once happened in 
similar situations. The prospect seemed to be that 
they would be trampled under the feet of the reck- 
less and sweeping body, in their onward course. 

"They will not turn out for us," said Finley ; "and 
if we do not conduct exactly right, we shall be 
crushed to death." 

The inexperienced adventurers bade him direct 
them in the emergency. Just as the front of the 
phalanx was within short rifle distance, he dischar- 
ged his rifle and brought down one of the bulls, 
that seemed to be a file leader, by a ball between 
the horns. The unwieldy animal fell. The mass 
raised a deafening sort of bellow, and became ar 
rested, as if transfixed to the spot. A momentary 
confusion of the mass behind ensued. But, borne 

along by the pressure of the multitudes still in the 
5 



50 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

rear, there was a gradual parting of the herd direct 
from the front, where the fallen buffalo lay. The 
disruption once made, the chasm broadened, until 
when the wings passed the travellers, they were thir- 
ty yards from the divisions on either hand. To pre- 
vent the masses yet behind from closing their lines, 
Finley took the rifle of one of his companions, and 
levelled another. This changed the pace of the 
animals to a rout. The last masses soon thundered 
by, and left them gazing in astonishment, not un- 
mixed with joy, in realizing their escape. "Job of 
Uz," exclaimed Boone, "had not larg.-^.r droves of 
cattle than we. In fact, we seem to have had in this 
instance an abundance to a fault." 

As this was an era in their adventures, and an 
omen of the abundance of the vast regions of forests 
which they had descried from the summits of the 
mountains, they halted, made a camp, and skinned 
the animals, preserving the skins, fat, tongues, and 
choice pieces. No epicures ever feasted higher than 
these athletic and hungry hunters, as they sat around 
their evening fire, and commented upon the ease 
with which their wants would be supplied in a coun- 
ry thus abounding with such animals. 

After feasting again in the morning on the spoils 
of the preceding day, and packing such parts of the 
animals as their probable necessities suggested, they 
commenced their march; and in no great distance 
reached Red river, a branch of the Cumberland. 
They followed the meanders of this river for some 
miles, until they reached, on the 7th day of June, 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOO.VE. 51 

Fmlej's former station, where his preceding explo- 
rations of the western country had terminated. 

Their journey to this point had lasted more than 
a month; and though the circumstances in which 
they had made it, had been generally auspicious, so 
long a route through unknown forests, and over pre- 
cipitous mountains, hitherto untrodden by white 
liien, could not but have been fatiguing in tlie ex- 
treme. None but such spirits could have sustained 
their hardships without a purpose to turn back, and 
leave their exploration unaccompHshed. 

They resolved in this place to encamp, and re- 
main for a time sufficient to recruit themselves for 
other expeditions and discoveries. The weather 
had been for some time past, and still remained, rainy 
and unpleasant; and it became necessary that their 
station should be of such a construction, as to secure 
them a dry sleeping place from the rain. The game 
was so abundant, that they found it a pleasure, rath- 
er than a difficulty, to supply themselves with food. 
The buffaloes were seen like herds of cattle, dispersed 
among the cane-brakes, or feeding on the grass, or 
ruminating in the shade. Their skins were of great 
utility, in furnishing them with moccasins, and many 
necessary articles indispensable to their comfortable 
subsistence at their station. 

What struck them with unfailing pleasure was, to 
observe the soil, in general, of a fertility without 
example on the other side of the mountains. From 
an eminence in the vicinity of their station, they 
could see, as far as vision could extend, the beautiful 
country of Kentucky. They remarked with aston- 



53 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

ishment the tall, straight trees, shading the exubei- 
ant soil, wholly clear from any other underbrush 
than the rich cane-brakes, the image of verdure and 
luxuriance, or tall grass and clover. Down the gen- 
tle slopes murmured clear limestone brooks. Finle}', 
who had some touch of scripture knowledge, ex- 
claimed in view of this wilderness-paradise, so abun* 
dant in game and wild fowls, "This wilderness blos- 
soms as the rose; and these desolate places are as the 
garden of God." 

"Ay," responded Boone; "and who would remain 
on the sterile pine hills of Nortn Carolina, to heai 
the screaming of the jay, and now and then bring 
down a deer too lean to be eaten? This is the land 
of hunters, where man and beast will grow to theii 
full size." 

They ranged through various forests, and crossed 
the numerous streams of the vicinity. By following 
the paths of the buffaloes, bears, deer, and other ani- 
mals, they discovered the Salines or Licks, where 
salt is made at the present day. The paths, in ap- 
proaching the salines, were trodden as hard and 
smooth, as in the vicinity of the farm-yards of the 
old settlements. Boone, from the principle which 
places the best pilot at the helm in a storm, was not 
slow to learn from innumerable circumstances which 
would have passed unnoticed by a less sagacious 
woodsman, that, although the country was not actu- 
ally inhabited by Indians, it was not the less a scene 
of strife and combat for the possession of such rich 
hunting grounds by a great number of tribes. He 
discovered that it wzis a common park to these 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 53 

fierce tribes; and none the less likely to expose 
them to the dangers of Indian warfare, because it 
was not claimed or inhabited by any particular tribe. 
On the contrary, instead of having to encounter a 
single tribe in possession, he foresaw that the jealousy 
of all the tribes would be united against the new 
ntruders. 

These fearless spirits, who were instinctively im- 
bued with an abhorrence of the Indians, heeded lit- 
tle, however, whether they had to make war on 
them, or the wild beasts. They felt in its fullest 
force that indomitable elasticity of character, which 
causes the possessor, every where, and in all forms 
of imagined peril, to feel sufficient to themselves. 
Hence the lonely adventurers continued fearlessly 
to explore the beautiful positions for settlements, to 
cross and name the rivers, and to hunt. 

By a happy fatality, through all the summer they 
met with no Indians, and experienced no impedi- 
ment in the way of the most successful hunting. 
During the season, they had collected large quanti- 
ties of peltries, and meeting with nothing to excit<i 
apprehension or alarm, they became constantly more 
delighted with the country. 

So passed their time, until the 22d of December. 
After this period adventures of the most disastrous 
character began to crowd upon them. We forth- 
with commence the narrative of incidents which 
constitute the general color of Boone's future life. 
5* 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 55 



CHAPTER TV 

TJie explormg party divide into different routes — Boone and Stewan 
taken prisoners by the Indians, and their escape — Boone meets with 
his elder brother and another white man in the woods — Stewart kil- 
led by the Indians, and the companion of the elder Boone destroyed 
by wolves — The eldor brother returns to North Carolina, leaving 
Boone aloire in the wilderness. 

In order to extend the means of gaining more 
exact information with regard to this beautiful coun- 
try, the party divided, and took different directions. 
Boone and Stewart formed one division, and the 
remaining three the other. The two former had as 
yet seen few thick forests. The country was much 
of it of that description, now known by the name of 
"Barrens," or open woods, which had the appear- 
ance of having been planted out with trees at wide 
and regular distances from each other, like those of 
an orchard, allowing the most luxuriant growth of 
cane, grass, or clover beneath them. They now 
passed a wide ai\d deep forest, in which the trees 
were large and thick. Among them were many of 
the laurel tribe, in full verdure in mid winter. Oth- 
ers were thick hung with persimmons, candied by 
the frost, nutritive, and as luscious as figs. Others 
again were covered with winter grapes. Every 
thing tended to inspire them with exalted notions of 
the natural resources of the country, and to give 
birth to those extravagant romances, which after- 
wards became prevalent, as descriptions of Ken- 
tucky. Such were Finley's accounts of it — views 



56- LIFE OF UANJEL EOONK. 

which went abroad, and created even in Europe an 
impression of a kind of new El Dorado, or rather ru- 
ral paradise. Other and vcrj different scenes, in no 
great length of time, diL-cnchanted the nevv' paradise, 
and presented it in Die sober traits of truth. 

They were never out of sight of buifaloes, deer, 
and turkeys. At night-fall they came in view of 
Kentucky river, and admired in unsated astonish- 
ment, the precipices three hundred feet high, at the 
foot of which, as in a channel cut out of the soHd 
limestone, rolled tiie dark waters of the beautiful 
stream. A lofty eminence wjis before them. Think- 
ing it would afford them a itir view of the meander- 
ings of the river, they ascended it. Tbis expecta- 
tion was realized. A large extent of country stretch- 
ed beneath them. Having surveyed it, tbey propo- 
sed to commence their return to rejoin their com- 
panions. As they were leisurely descending the 
hill, little dreaming of danger, the India,n yell burst 
upon their ears. A numerous party of Indians 
sprang from the cane-brake, surrounded, vanquish- 
ed, and bound them, before they had time to have 
recourse to their arms. The Indians proceeded to 
plunder them of their rifles, and every thing in their 
possession -but the most indispensable articles of 
dress. They then led them off to their camp, where 
they confined them in such a manner a,5 effectually 
to prevent their escape. 

Mot knowifig a word of the speech of iheir cap- 
tors, who knew as little of theirs, tbey were wholly 
Ignorant of what fate awaited them. The Indians 
next day marched them off rapidly towards the 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 57 

north, compelling them to travel at a rate which 
was excessively annoying to captives in their pre- 
dicament — manacled, in momentary apprehension 
of death, and plunging deeper into the wilderness 
in advancing towards the permanent abode of their 
savage masters. It was well for them that they 
were more athletic than the savages, equally capa- 
ble of endurance, and alike incapable of betraying 
groans, fear, or even marks of regret in their coun- 
tenance. They knew enough of savage modes to 
beware that the least indications of weariness, and 
inability to proceed, would have brought the toma- 
hawk and scalping-knife upon their skulls — weapons 
with which they were thus early supplied from De- 
troit. They therefore pushed resolutely on, with 
cheerful countenances, watching the while with in- 
tense earnestness, to catch from the signs and ges- 
tures of the Indians, v/hat was their purpose in re- 
gard to their fate. By the second day, they com- 
prehended the words of most frequent recurrence in 
the discussion, that took place respecting them. 
Part, thej perceived, were for putting them to death 
to prevent their escape. The other portion advo- 
cated their being adopted into the tribe, and do- 
mesticated. To give efficacy to the counsels of 
these last, the captives not only concealed every 
trace of chagrin, but dissembled cheerfulness, and 
affected to like their new mode of life; and seemed 
as happy, and as much amused, as the Indians them- 
selves 

Fortunately, their previous modes of life, and in 
fact their actual aptitudes and propensities wonder- 



58 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

fully qualified them, along with their reckless cour- 
age and elasticity of character, to enact this difficult 
part with a success, which completely deceived the 
Indians, and gave the entire ascendency to the ad- 
vice of those who proposed to spare, and adopt them 
nto their tribe. Lulled by this semblance, the cap- 
tors were less and less strict in their guard. On the 
seventh night of their captivity, the savages, having 
made a great fire, and fed plentifully, all fell into a 
sound sleep, leaving their prisoners, who affected to 
be as deeply asleep as themselves, wliolly unguarded. 

It need hardly be said, that the appearance of con- 
tent they had worn, was mere outward show; and 
that they slept not. Boone slowly and cautiously 
raised himself to a sitting posture, and thus remained 
a few moments to mark, if his change of position had 
been observed. One of the sleepers turned in his 
sleep. Boone instantly dropped back to his recum- 
bent posture and semblance of sleep. So he re- 
mained fifteen minutes, when he once more raised 
himself, and continued sitting for some time, without 
noting a movement among the slumberers around 
him. He then ventured to communicate his pur- 
pose to his companion. 

The greatest caution was necessary to prevent 
disturbing the savages, as the slightest noise would 
awake them, and probably bring instant death upon 
the captives. Stewart succeeded in placing him- 
self upon his feet without any noise. The compan 
ions were not far apart, but did not dare to whisper 
to each other the thought that occurred alike to 
both- — that, should they escape without rifles and 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. S§ 

ammunition, they must certainly die of hunger. The 
place where their rifles stood had been carefully 
noted by them, and by groping tlicir way with the 
utmost care, they finally reached them. Fortu- 
nately, the equipments, containing the usual supply 
of powder and ball, were near the rifles. The feel- 
ipgs with which Boone and Stewart stole forth from 
the circle of their captors may be imagined. They 
made their way into the woods through the darkness, 
keeping close together for some time, before they ex- 
changed words. 

It was not far from morning when they began 
their attempt at escape; but they had made con- 
siderable progress from the Indian encampment be- 
fore the dawn. They took their course with the 
first light, and pursued it the whole day, reaching 
their camp without meeting with any accident. As 
the sun was dechning, forms were seen approach- 
ing the camp in the distance. The uncertain light 
in which they were first visible, rendered it impos- 
sible for Boone and Stewart to determine whether 
they were whites or Indians; but they grasped their 
rifles, and stood ready for defonce. The forms con- 
tinued to approach cautiously and slowly, until 
they were within speaking distance. Boone then 
hailed them with the challenge, "Who comes 
there?" The dehght may be imagined with which 
Boone and Stewart heard the reply of "White men 
and friends'/' "Come on then," said Boone. The 
next moment he found himself in the arms of his 
brother, who, accompanied by a single companion, 
had left North Carolina, and made his way all the 



60 LIFE OF DANIET. BOONE. 

distance from the Yadkin to the Cumberland 
They had been wandering many days in the woods, 
in pursuit of Boone and his party, and had thus 
providentially fallen upon them. 

Notwithstanding the damp which it must cast on 
the spirits of these new adventurers to hear of the 
recent captivity of Boone and Stewa.rt, and the un- 
certain fiitc of the rest of the company, this joyous 
meeting of brothers and friends in the wilderness, 
and this intelligence from home, filled the parties 
with a joy too sincere and unalloyed to be repressed 
by apprehensions for the future. 

The four associates commenced the usual occu- 
pation of hunting, but were soon alarmed by signs 
of the vicinity of Indians, and clear proofs that they 
were prowling near them in the woods. These 
circumstances strongly admonished them not«to 
venture singly to any great distance from each 
other. In the eagerness of pursuing a wounded 
buffalo, Boone and Stewart, however, allowed them- 
selves to be separated from their "companions. 
Aware of their imprudence, and halting to return, 
a party of savages rushed from the cane-brake, and 
discharged a shower of arrows upon them, one of 
which laid Stewart dead on the spot. The first 
purpose of Boone was to fire upon them, and sell 
his life as dearly as possible. But rashness is not 
bravery; and seeing the numbers of the foe, the 
hopelessness of resistance, and the useiessness of 
bartering his own life for the revenge of inflicting 
a single death — reflecting, moreover, on the retalia- 
tion it would probably bring down on the remain- 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 



61 



der of his companions, he retreated, and escaped, 
amidst a flight of arrows, in safety to the camp. 

One would have supposed that this party would 
have needed no more monition to keep them togeth- 
er, and always on their guard. But, forgetful of 
the fate of Stewart, the partner of the elder Boone, 
who had recently arrived, allowed himself to be be- 
guiled away from the two Boones, as they were 
hunting together. The object of his curiosity was 
of little importance. In pursuit of it, he wandered 
into a swamp, and was lost. The two brothers 
sought him, long and painfully, to no purpose. 
Discouraged, and perhaps exasperated in view of 
his careless imprudence, they finally concluded he 
had chosen that method of deserting them, and had 
set out on his return to North CaroUna. Under 
such impressions, they relinquished the search, and 
returned to camp. They had reason afterwards to 
repent their harsh estimate of his intentions. Frag- 
ments of his clothes, and traces of blood were found 
on the opposite side of the swamp. A numerous 
pack of wolves had been heard to howl in that di- 
rection the evening on which he had been lost. 
Circumstances placed it beyond a doubt, that, while 
wandering about in search of his companions, these 
terrible animals had come upon him and torn him 
in pieces. He was never heard of afterwards. 

The brothers were thus left alone in this wide 
wilderness, the only white men west of the moun- 
tains; as they concluded the remainder of the ori- 
ginal party had returned to North CaroUna. But 



J2 LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 

they were neither desponding nor indolent. Thejr 
held pleasant communion together — hunted bj day, 
cooked their game, sat by their bright fires, and 
Bung the airs of their country by night, as though 
in the midst of the gayest society. They devoted, 
beside, much of their time and labor to preparing a 
comfortable cabin to shelter them during the ap 
proaching winter. 

They were in want of many things. Clothing 
and moccasins they might supply. With bread, 
sugar, and salt, though articles of the first necessity, 
they could dispense. But ammunition, an article 
absolutely indispensable, was failini: them. They 
concluded, too, that horses would be of essential 
service to them. They finally came to the resolu- 
tion that the elder Boone should return to North 
Carolina, and come out to the new country with 
ammunition, horses, and supplies. 

The character of Daniel Boone, in consenting 
to be left alone in that wilderness, surrounded by 
perils from the Indians and wild beasts, of which 
he had so recently and terribly been made aware, 
appears in its true light. We have heard of a 
Robinson Crusoe made so by the necessity of ship- 
wreck; but all history can scarcely parallel another 
such an instance of a man voluntarily consenting 
to be left alone among savages and wild beasts, 
seven hundred miles from the nearest white inhabi- 
tant. The separation came. The elder brother 
disappeared in the forest, and Daniel Boone was 
left in the cabin, so recently cheered by the presence 



LIFE OF DANIEL IJOONE. ^ 

of his brother, entirely alone. Their only dog fol- 
lowed the departing brother, and Boone had nothing 
but his unconquerable spirit to sustain him during 
the long and lonely days and nights, visited by the 
remembrance of his distant wife and children. 

To prevent the recurrence of dark and lonely 
thoughts, he set out, soon after his brother left him, 
on a distant excursion to the north-west. The 
country grew still more charming under his eye at 
every step of his advance, lie wandered through 
the delightful country of the Barrens, and gained 
the heights of one of th" ridges of Salt river, whence 
he could look back on the Alleghany ridges, lifting 
iheir blue heads in the direction of the country of his 
frife and children. Before him rolled the majestic 
Ohio, down its dark forests, and seen by him for the 
first time. It may be imagined what thoughts came 
over his mind, as the lonely hunter stood on the 
shore of this mighty stream, straining his thoughts 
towards its sources, and the unknown country where 
it discharged itself into some other river, or the 
sea. Duiing this journey he explored the country 
on the south shore of the Ohio, between the Cum- 
berland and the present site of Louisville, experi 
encing in these lonely explorations a strange pleas- 
ure, which, probably, none but those of his tempera- 
ment can adequately imagine. 

Returning to his cabin, as a kind of head quarters, 
he found it undisturbed by the Indians. Caution 
suggested to him the expedient of often changing 
his position, and not continuing permanently to 



(54 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

sleep in the cabin. Sometimes he slept in the cane- 
brake, sometimes under the covert of a limestone 
cliff, often made aware on his return to the cabin 
that the Indians had discovered it, and visited it 
during his absence. Surrounded with danger and 
death, though insensible to fear, he neglected none 
of those prudent precautions of which men of his 
temperament are much more able to avail them- 
selves, than those always forecasting the fashion of 
uncertain evils. He was, however, never for an 
hour in want of the most ample supply of food. 
Herds of deer and buffcdoes were seldom out of his 
sight for a day together. His nights were often dis- 
turbed by the howling of wolves, which abounded 
as much as the other forest animals. His table thus 
abundantly spread in the wilderness, and every 
excursion affording new views of the beautiful soli- 
tudes, he used to affirm afterwards that this period 
was among the happiest in his life; that during it, 
care and melancholy, and a painful sense of loneli 
ness, were alike unknown to him. 

We must not, however, suppose that the lonely 
hunter was capable only of feeling the stern and 
sullen pleasures of the savage. On the contrary, 
ne was a man of the kindliest nature, and of the 
tenderest affections. We have read of verses, in 
solid columns, said to have been made by him. We 
would be sorry to believe him the author of thes 
verses, for they would redound little to his honor as 
a poet. But, though we believe he did not attempt 
to make bad verses, the woodsman was essentially 



LIFE OF DANIEL IJOONE. 65 

a poet. He loved nature in all her aspects of beau- 
ty and grandeur with the intensest admiration". He 
never wearied of admiring the charming natural 
landscapes spread before him; and, to his latest 
days, his spirit in old age seemed to revive in the 
season of spring, and when he visited the fires of the 
sugar camps, blazing in the open maple groves. 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 67 



CHAPTER V. 



Boone is pursued by the Indians, and eludes their pursuit — He encoun- 
ters and kills a bear — The return of his brother with ammunition — 
They explore the countr}-^ — Boone kills a panther on the back of a 
buffalo — They return to North Carolina. 

Boone's brother had departed on the first of May. 
During the period of his absence, which lasted un- 
til the twenty-second of July, he considered himself 
the only white person west of the mountains. It is 
true, some time in this year, (1770,) probably in the 
latter part of it, an exploring party led by General 
James Knox, crossed the Alleghany mountains. But 
this- exploring expedition confined its discoveries 
principally to the country south and west of the riv- 
er Kentucky. This exploration was desultory, and 
without much result. Boone never met with them, or 
knew that they were in the country. Consequently, 
in regard to his own estimation, he was as complete- 
ly alone in this unexplored world, as though they 
had not been there. 

He never allowed himself to neglect his caution 
in respect to the numerous savages spread over the 
country. He knew that he was exposed every mo 
ment to the danger of falling into their hands. The 
fate of Stewart had served as a warning to him. It 
is wonderful that he should have been able to trav- 
erse such an extent of country as he did, and live in 
*t so many months, and yet evade them. It requi- 



68 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

red no little ingenuity and self-possession to take 
such measures as insured this good fortune. 

About mid-daj, near the close of the month of 
June, he paused in one of his excursions for a short 
time under the shade of a tree. As he looked cau- 
tiously around him, he perceived four Indians ad- 
vancing openly towards him, but at a considerable 
distance, and apparently without having yet seen 
him. He did not delay to recommence his course 
through the woods, hoping by short turns, and con- 
cealing himself among the hills, to prevent an en- 
counter with them, as the chance of four to one was 
too great an odds against him. He advanced in this 
way one or two miles; but as he cast a glance be- 
hind, he saw, with pain, that they sedulously fol 
lowed in his trail at nearly their first distance, show- 
ing the same perseverance and sagacity of pursuit 
with which a hound follows a deer. When he first 
perceived them, he was in such a position that he 
could see them, and yet remain himself unseen. He 
was convinced that they had not discovered his per- 
son, although so closely pursued by them. But how to 
throw them off his trail, he was at a loss to conjec- 
ture. He adopted a number of expedients in succes- 
sion, but saw the Indians still on the track behind. 
Suddenly a method occurred to his imagination, 
which finally proved successful. Large grape vines 
swung from the trees in all directions around him. 
y Hastening onward at a more rapid pace, until he 
passed a hill that would serve to conceal him for a 
few moments, he seized a vine sufiiciently strong to 
support his weierbt; and disengaginrj it from the roote, 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOOKE. 69 

wlimbed it a few feet, by bracing against the tree to 
which it was attached. When he had attained the 
necessary height, he gave himself so strong an im 
pulse from the tree, that he reached the ground some 
yards from the spot where he left it. By this expe- 
dient he broke his trail. 

Resuming his route in a course at right angles 
from that he had previously followed, as fast as pos- 
sible, he finally succeeded in entirely distancing his 
pursuers, and leaving them at fault in pursuing his 
trail. 

Boone soon after this met with a second adven- 
ture in which he actually encountered a foe scarce 
ly less formidable than the savage. Rendered doubly 
watchful by his late escape, none of the forest sounds 
escaped his notice. Hearing the approach of what 
he judged to be a large animal by the noise of its 
movement through the cane, he held his rifle ready 
for instant use, and drew from its sheath a long and 
sharp knife, which he always wore in his belt. He 
determined to try the efficacy of his rifle first. As 
the animal came in sight it proved to be a she bear. 
They are exceedingly ferocious at all times, and 
their attack is dangerous and often fatal; but par- 
ticularly bO, when they are surrounded by their cubs, 
as was the case in this instance. 
- As soon £is the animal perceived him it gave indi- 
cations of an intention to make battle. Boone lev- 
elled his rifle, and remained quiet, until the bear was 
-sufficiently near to enable him to shoot with effect. 
In general his aim was sure; but this time the ball 
•lid not reach the point ot which he had aimed; and 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 71 

the wound it inflicted only served to render the ani- 
mal mad with rage and pain. It was impossible for 
him to reload and discliarge his gun a second time 
before it would reach him ; and yet he did not rel- 
ish the idea of grappling with it in close fight. His 
knife was the resource to which he instantly turned. 
He held it in his right hand in such a position that the 
bear could not reach his person without receiving 
its point. His rifle, held in his left hand, served as 
a kind of shield. Thus prepared, he awaited the 
onset of the formidable animal. When within a 
foot of him, it reared itself erect to grasp him with 
its huge paws. In this position it pressed upon the 
knife until the whole blade was buried in its body. 
Boone had pointed it directly to the heart of the an 
imal. It fell harmless to the ground. 

The time fixed for the return of his brother was 
drawing near. Extreme solicitude respecting him 
now disturbed the hitherto even tenor of his life. 
He remained most of his time in his cabin, hunting 
no more than was necessary for subsistence, and then 
m the direction in which his brother would be like- 
ly to approach. It was not doubt of his brother's 
compliance with his promise of return, that disturb- 
ed the woodsman — such a feeling never even enter- 
ed his mind. He was confident he would prove 
faithful to the trust reposed in liim; but the difficul- 
ties and dangers of the way were so great for a soli- 
tary individual upon the route before him, tha* 
Boone feared he might fall a victim to thera, not- 
withstanding the utmost exertion of self-possession 
and fortitude. 



72 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 



Day after clay passed, after the extreme limit of 
the period fixed by the elder Boone for his return, 
and still he came not. It may be imagined that 
Boone had need of all the firmness and philosophy 
of character, with which he was so largely endowed 
by nature, to sustain him under the pressure of anxi 
ety for the safety of his brother, and to hear through 
him from his family. He suffered, too, from the? 
conviction that he must soon starve in the wilder 
ness himself, as his ammunition was almost gone. 
He could not hope to see his family again, unless 
his brother or some other person furnished him the 
means of obtaining food on his way to rejoin them. 
His rifle — his dependence for subsistence and de- 
fence — would soon become entirely useless. What 
to others would have been real danger^ '^nd trials — 
a solitary life in the wilderness, exposure l^ *^'^ "at- 
tacks of the savages and wild beasts — were regard- 
ed by him as nothing; but here he saw himself 
driven to the last extremity, and without resource. 
These meditations, although they made him thought- 
ful, did not dispiri' ^^''jp XJis spirit was unconquer- 
able. He was sitting oin., vening, near sunset, at 
the door of his cabin, indulging in reflections natu- 
rally arising from liis position. His attention was 
withdrawn by a sound as of something approaching 
through tlie forest. Looking up, he saw nothing, 
out he arose, and stood prepared for defence. He 
could now distinguish the sound as of horses ad- 
vancmg directly towards the cabin. A moment 
afterwards he saw, through the trees, his brother 



LITE OP DANIEL BOONE. 73 

mounted on one horse, and leading another heavily 
laden. 

It would be useless to attempt to describe his 
sensations at this sight. Every one will feel in- 
stantly, how it must have operated upon all the 
sources of joy. More unmixed happiness is seldom 
enjoyed on the earth, than that, in which the bro- 
thers spent this evening. His brother brought him 
good news of the health and welfare of his family, 
and of the affectionate remembrance in which he 
was held by them; and an abundant supply of am- 
munition, beside many other articles, that in his 
situation, might be deemed luxuries. The brothers 
talked over their supper, and until late at night, for 
they had much to relate to each other, and both 
had been debarred the pleasure of conversation so 
long that it now seemed as though they could never 
weary of it. The sun was high when they awoke 
the following morning. After breakfast, they held 
a consultation with respect to what was next to be 
done. From observation, Boone was satisfied that 
numbers of Indians, in small parties, were then in 
the neighborhood. He knew it was idle to suppose 
that two men, however brave and skilful in the use 
of their weapons, could survive long in opposition 
to them. He felt the impolicy of wasting more 
time in roaming over the country for the mere pur- 
pose of hunting. 

He proposed to his brother that they should im- 
mediately set themselves seriously about selecting 
the most eligible spot on which permanently to fix 
liis family. This done, they would return together 



74 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

to North Carolina to bring them out to the new 
countrj. He did not doubt, that he could induce a 
sufficient number to accompany him, to render a 
residence in it comparatively safe. That they 
might accomplish this purpose with as little del^v 
as possible, they proceeded the remaii ider of the 
day to hunt, and prepare food sufficient for some 
time. The following day they completed the ne- 
cessary arrangement, and settled every thing for de- 
parture on the next morning. 

They directed their course to Cumberland river. 
In common with all explorers of unknown coun 
tries, they gave names to the streams which they 
crossed. After reaching Cumberland river, they 
traversed the region upon its banks in all directions 
for some days. Thence they took a more northern 
route, which led them to Kentucky river. The 
country around the latter river delighted them. Its 
soil and position were such as they sought; and they 
determined, that here should be the location of the 
new settlement. Having acquainted themselves, 
as far as they deemed necessary, with the charac- 
ter of the region to be revisited, their returning 
journey was recommenced. No incidents, but such 
as had marked all the period of their journeyings 
in the wilderness, the occasional encounter of Indi- 
ans by day and the cries of wild beasts by night 
had happened to them, during their last explo 
ration. 

Upon the second day of their advance in the di- 
rection of their home, they heard the approach of 
a drove of buffaloes. The brothers remarked, that 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 75 

from the noise there must be an immense number, 
or some uncommon confusion among them. As the 
buffaloes came in view, the woodsmen saw the ex- 
planation of the unusual uproar in a moment. The 
herd were in a perfect furj, stamping the ground 
and tearing it up, and rushing back and forward 
upon one another in all directions. A panther had 
seated himself upon the back of one of the largest 
buffaloes, and fastened his claws and teeth into the 
flesh of the animal, wherever he could reach it, un- 
til the blood ran down on all sides. The move- 
ments of a powerful animal, under such suffering, 
maj be imagined. But plunging, rearing, and run- 
ning were to no purpose. The panther retained its 
seat, and continued its horrid work. The buffalo, 
in its agony, sought relief in the midst of its com- 
panions, but instead of obtaining it, communicated 
its fury to the drove. 

The travellers did not care to approach the buf- 
faloes too closely; but Boone, picking the flint of 
his rifle, and looking carefully at the loading, took 
aim at the panther, determined to displace the mon- 
ster from its seat. It happened, that the ])uffalo 
continued a moment in a position to allow the die- 
charge to take effect. The panther released its 
hold, and came to the ground. As generally hap- 
pens in such cases, this herd was followed by a 
band of wolves. They prowl around for the re- 
mains usually found in the train of such numbers 
of animals. Another rifle was discharged among 
them, for the sport of seeing them scatter thro^igh 
the woods. 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 



77 



The brothers left such traces — or blazes as they 
are technically called — of their course, as they 
thought would enable them to find it again, until 
they reached the foot of the mountains. They tri- 
ed various ascents, and finally discovered a route, 
which, with some labor might be rendered tolerably 
easy. They proposed to cross the famihes here, and 
blazed the path in a way that could not be mista- 
ken. This important point settled, they hastened 
to the settlement, which they reached without ac- 
cident. 

7* 



78 



LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 



CHAPTER VI. 



Boone starts with his family to Kentucky — Their return to Clinch rivsr 
— He conducts a party of surveyors to the Falls of Ohio — He helps 
build Boonesborough, and removes his family to the fort — His daugh- 
ter and two of Col. Calloway's daughters taken prisoners by the 
Indians — They pursue the Indians and rescue the captives. 

The next step was to collect a sufficient number 
of emigrants who would be willing to remove to 
the new country with the families of the Boones, to 
give the settlements security and strength to resist 
the attacks of the Indians. This was not an easy 
task. It may be readily imagined that the Boones 
saw only the bright side of the contemplated expe- 
dition. They painted the fertility and amenity of 
the flowering wilderness in the most glowing colors. 
They described the cane-brakes, the clover and 
grass, the transparent limestone springs and brooks, 
the open forests, the sugar maple orchards, the buf- 
faloes, deer, turkeys and wild fowls, in all the fervid 
colors of their own imaginations. To them it was 
the paradise of the first pair, whose inhabitants had 
only to put forth their hands, and eat and enjoy. 
The depredations, captivities, and scalpings, of the 
Indians; the howling of the wolves; the diseases, 
and peculiar trials and difficulties of a new country, 
without houses, mills, and the most indispensable 
necessaries of civihzed life, were all overlooked. 
But in such a case, in a compact settlement like 
that of the Yadkin, there are never wanting gain- 
sayers, opposers, gossips, who envied the Boones. 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 79 

These caused those disposed to the enterprise to 
hear the other part, and to contemplate the other 
side of the picture. Thej put stories in circula- 
tion as eloquent as those of the Boones, which told 
of all the scalpings, captivities, and murders of the 
Indians, magnified in a tenfold proportion. With 
them, the savages were like the ogres and bloody 
giants of nursery stories. They had pleasant tales 
of born-snakes, of such deadly malignity, thnt the 
thorn in their tails, struck into the largest tree in 
full verdure, instantly blasted it. They scented in 
the air of the countrj-, deadly diseases, and to them, 
Boone's paradise was a Hinnom^ the valley of the 
shadow of death. 

The minds of the half resolved, half doubting 
persons, that meditated emigration, vibrated alter- 
nately backwards and forwards, inclined or disin- 
clined to it, according to the last view of the case 
presented to them. But the natural love of adven- 
ture, curiosity, fondness for the hunting hfe, dissat- 
isfaction with the incessant labor necessary for sub- 
sistence on their present comparatively sterile soil; 
joined to the confident eloquence of the Boones, 
prevailed on four or five families to join them in the 
expedition. 

All the necessary arrangements of preparing for 
this distant expedition, of making sales and purcha- 
ses, had occupied nearly two years. The expedi- 
tion commenced its march on the 26th of Septem- 
ber, 1773. They all set forth with confident spirits 
for the western wilderness, and were joined by forty 
persons in Powell's Valley, a settlement in advance 



80 IJFB OF DANiETi BOONE. 

of that on the Yadkin, towards the western count^)^ 
The whole made a cavalcade of nearly" eighty per- 
sons. 

The three principal ranges of the Alleghany, over 
which they must pass, were designated as PowelPs, 
Walden's, and Cumberland. These mountains 
'orming the barrier between the old settlements and 
the new country, stretch from the north-east to the 
south-west. They are of great length and breadth, 
and not far distant from each other. There are 
nature-formed passes over them, which render thr 
ascent comparatively easy. The aspect of these 
huge piles was so wild and rugged, as to make it 
natural for those of the party who were unaccus- 
tomed to mountains, to express fears of being able 
to reach the opposite side. The course traced by 
the brothers on their return to Carolina, was found 
and followed. The advantage of this forethought 
was strongly perceived by all. Their progress was 
uninterrupted by any adverse circumstance, and 
every one was in high spirits, until the west side of 
Walden's ridge, the most elevated of the three, had 
been gained. They were now destined to experi 
ence a most appalling reverss of fortune. 

On the tenth of October, as the party were advan- 
cing along a narrow defile, unapprehensive of dan- 
ger, they were suddenly terrified by fearful yells. 
Instantly aware that Indians surrounded them, the 
men sprang to the dcfem e of the heipless women 
and children. But the attack had been so sudden, 
and the Indians were so much superior in point of 
numbers, that six men fell at the first onset of the 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 



81 



savages. A seventh was woiindcd, and the party 
would have been overpowered, but for a general 
and effective discharge of the rifles of the remainder. 
The Indians, terror-struck, took to flight, and disap- 
peared. 

Had the numbers of the travellers allowed it, they 
felt no inclination to pursue the retreating Indians. 
Their loss had been too serious to permit the imme- 
diate gratification of revenge. The eldest son of 
Daniel Boone was found among the slain. The 
domestic animals accompanying the expedition were 
so scattered by the noise of the affray, that it was 
impossible again to collect and recover them. The 
distress and discouragement of the party were so 
great, as to produce an immediate determination to 
drop the projected attempt of a settlement in Ken- 
tucky, and return to Clinch river, which lay forty 
miles in their rear, where a number of families had 
already fixed themselves. 

They then proceeded to perform the last melan 
choly duties to the bodies of their unfortunate com- 
panions with all decent observances which circum- 
stances would allow. Their return was then com- 
menced. Boone and his brother, with some others, 
did not wish to forsake the undertaking upon which 
they had set out; but the majority against them was 
so great, and the feeling on the subject so strong, 
that they were compelled to acquiesce. The party 
retraced, in deep sadness, the steps they had so lately 
taken in cheerfulness, and even joy. 

Daniel Boone remained with his family on Clinch 
river, until June. 1774; when he was requested by 



82 LIFE or DANIEL BOONE. 

the governor of Virginia to go to the ialJs of Ohio, 
to act as a guide to a party of surveyors. The man- 
ifestations of hostihty, on the part of the Indians, 
were such, that their longer stay was deemed unsafe. 
Boone undertook to perform this service, and set out 
upon this journey, with no other companion than a 
man by the name of Stoner. They reached the 
point of destination, now Louisville, in a surprisingly 
short period, without any accident. Under his 
guidance the surveyors arrived at the settlements in 
safety. From the time that Boone left his home, 
upon this enterprise, until he returned to it, was but 
sixty-two days. During this period he travelled 
eight hundred miles on foot, through a country en- 
tirely destitute of human habitations, save the camps 
of the Indians. 

In the latter part of this year, the disturbances 
between the Indians north-west of the Ohio, and 
the frontier settlers, grew to open hostilities. . Dan- 
iel Boone being in Virginia, the governor appointed 
him to the command of three contiguous garri- 
sons on the frontier, with the commission of cap- 
tain. The campaign of the year terminated in a 
battle, after which the militia were disbanded. 
Boone was consequently relieved from duty. 

Col. Henderson, of North CaroHna, had been for 
some time engaged in forming a company in that 
state, for the purpose of purchasing the lands on 
the south side of the Kentucky, from the southern 
Indians. The plan was now matured, and Boone 
was solicited by the company to attend the treaty 
to be made between them and the Indians, at fV^a- 



LIFB OF DANIEL IJOONE. S3 

tega, in March, 1775, to settle the terms of the iie- 
gociation. The requisite information, in respect to 
the proposed purchase, was given him, and he ac- 
ceded to the request. At the appointed time, he 
attended and successfully performed the service in- 
trusted to him. Soon afterwards the same com- 
pany applied to him to lay out a road between the 
settlements on Holston river and Kentucky river. 
No little knowledge of the country, and judgment 
were requisite for the proper fulfilment of this ser- 
vice. A great many different routes must be exam- 
ined, before the most practicable one could be fixed 
upon. The duty was, however, executed by Boone, 
promptly and faithfully. The labor was great, 
owing to the rugged and mountainous country, 
through which the route led. The laborers, too, 
suffered from the repeated attacks of Indians. Four 
of them were killed, and five wounded. The re- 
mainder completed this work, by reaching Ken- 
tucky river, in April, of the same year. They 
immediately proceeded to erect a fort near a salt 
spring, where Boonesborough now stands. The 
party, enfeebled by its losses, did not complete the 
erection of the fort until June. The Indians trou- 
bled them exceedingly, and killed one man. The 
fort consisted of a block-house, and several cabins, 
surrounded by palisades. 

The fort being finished, Boone returned to his 
family, and soon after removed them to this first 
garrison of Kentucky. The purpose on which 
his heart had so long been set, was now accom- 
plished. His wife and daughters were the first 



84 LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 

white women that ever stood on the banks of Kei>i 
tuckj river. In our zeal to blazon our subject, it 
is not affirmed, that Boone was absolutely the first 
discoverer and explorer of Kentucky, for he was 
not. But the high meed of being the first actual 
settler and cultivator of the soil, cannot be denied 
him. It was the pleasant season of the close of 
biimmer and commencement of autumn, when the 
immigrants would see their new residence in the 
best light. Many of its actual inconveniences were 
withheld from observation, as the mildness of the 
air precluded the necessity of tight dwellings. 
Arrangements were made for cultivating a field in 
the coming spring. The Indians, although far from 
friendly, did not attempt any immediate assault up- 
cn their new neighbors, and the first events of the 
settlement were decidedly fortunate. The game in 
the woods was an unfailing resource for food. The 
supplies brought from their former homes by the 
immigrants were not yet exhausted, and things 
went on in their usual train, with the added advan- 
tage, that over all, in their new home, was spread 
the charm of novelty. 

Winter came and passed with as little discomfort 
to the inmates of the garrison as could be expected 
from the circumstances of their position. The 
cabins were thoroughly daubed, and fuel was of 
course abundant. It is true, those who felled the 
trees were compelled to be constantly on their 
guard, lest a red man should take aim at them from 
the shelter of some one of the forest hiding places. 
But they were fitted for this way of getting alon^ 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 85 

by their training, natures, and predilections. Theie 
was no want of excitement during the day, or even 
night — nothing of the wearying monotony to which 
a life of safe and regular occupation is subject. 
Spring opened. The trees were girdled, and the 
brush cut down and burned, preparatory to plough- 
ing the field. A garden spot was marked otf, the 
virgin earth thrown up and softened, and then given 
in charge to the wives and daughters of the estab- 
lishment. They brought out their stock of seeds, 
gathered in the old settlements, and every bright 
day saw them engaged in the light and healthful 
occupation of planting them. They were protect- 
ed by the vicinity of their husbands and fathers, and 
in turn cheered them in their severer labors. The 
Indians had forborne any attacks upon the settlers 
so long, that, as is naturally the case, they had ceas- 
ed in a degree to dwell upon the danger always to 
be apprehended from them. The men did not fail 
to take their rifles and knives with them whenever 
they went abroad; but the women ventured occa- 
sionally a short distance without the palisades during 
the day, never, however, losing sight of the fort. 
This temerity was destined to cost them dear. 

Colonel Calloway, the intimate friend of Boone, 
had joined him in the course of the spring, at the 
fort, which had received, by the consent of all, the 
name of Boonesborough. He had two daughters. 
Captain Boone had a daughter also, and the three 
were companions; and, if we may take the portraits 
of the rustic time, patterns of youthful bloom and 
loveliness. It cannot be doubted that they were 
8 



86 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

inexpressibly denr to their parents. These girls, at 
the close of a beautiful summer day, the 14th of 
July, were tempted imprudently to wander into the 
woods at no great distance from their habitations, 
to gather flowers with which to adorn their rustic 
fire-places. They were suddenly surrounded by 
half a dozen Indians. Their shrieks and efforts to 
flee were alike unavailing. They were dragged 
rapidly beyond the power of making themselves 
heard. As soon as they Avere deemed to be beyond 
the danger of rescue, they were treated with the ut- 
most indulgence and decorum. 

This forbearance, of a race that we are accustom- 
ed to call savages, was by no means accidental, or 
pecuHar to this case. While in battle, they are un- 
sparing and unrelenting as tigers — while, after the 
fury of its excitement is past, they will exult with 
frantic and demoniac joy in the cries of their vic- 
tims expiring at a slow fire — while they dash the 
tomahawk with merciless indifference into the clo- 
ven skulls of mothers and infants, they are univer- 
sally seen to treat captive women with a decorous 
forbearance. This strange trait, so little in keeping 
with other parts of their character, has been attrib- 
uted by some to their want of the sensibilities and 
passions of our race. The true solution is, the force 
of their habits. Honor, as they estimate it, is, with 
them, the most sacred and inviolable of all laws. 
The decorum of forbearance towards women in their 
power has been incorporated with their code as the 
peculiar honor of a warrior. It is usually kept sa- 
cred and inviolate. Instances are not wanting 



LIFE OF DAMJKL BOONJE. St 

where they have shown themselves the most aTclent 
lovers of their captives, and, we may add, most suc- 
cessful in gaining their voluntary tiffection in return. 
Enough such examples are recorded, were other 
proofs wanting, to redeem their forbearance from 
the negative character resulting from the want of 
passions. 

The captors of these young ladies, having reach- 
ed the main body of their people, about a dozen in 
number, made all the provision in their power for 
the comfort of their fair captives. They served 
them with their best provisions, and by signs and 
looks that could not be mistaken, attempted to 
soothe their agonies, and quiet their apprehensions 
and fears. The parents at the garrison, having wait- 
ed in vain for the return of their gay and beloved 
daughters to prepare their supper, and in torments 
of suspense that may easily be imagined, until the 
evening, became aware that they were either lost 
or made captives. They sallied forth in search of 
them, and scoured the woods in every direction, 
without discovering a trace of them. They were 
then but too well convinced that they had been ta- 
ken by the Indians. Captam Boone and Colonel 
Calloway, the agonizing parents of the lost ones, 
appealed to the company to obtain volunteers to 
pursue the Indians, under an oath, if they found the 
captors, either to retake their daughters, or die in 
the attempt. The oath of Boone on this occasion is 
recorded: "By the Eternal Power that made me a 
father, if my daughter lives, and is found, I will 
either bring her back, or spill my life blood." The 



88 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

oath was no sooner uttered than every individual of 
the males crowded round Boone to repeat it. But 
he reminded them that a part of their number must 
remain to defend the station. Seven select persons 
only were admitted in the oath, along with the fath- 
ers of the captives. The only difficulty was in ma- 
king the selection. Supplying themselves with 
knapsacks, rifles, ammunition, and provisions, the 
party set forth on the pursuit. 

Hitherto they had been unable to find the trail of 
the captors. Happily they fell upon it by accident. 
But the Indians, according to their custom, had ta- 
ken so much precaution to hide their trail, that 
they found themselves exceedingly perplexed to 
keep it, and they were obHged to put forth all the 
acquirement and instinct of woodsmen not to find 
themselves every moment at fault in regard to their 
course. The rear Indians of the file had covered 
their foot prints with leaves. They often turned off 
at right angles; and whenever they came to a 
branch, walked in the water for some distance. At 
a place of this sort, the pursuers were for some time 
wholly unable to find at what point the Indians had 
left the branch, and began to despair of regaining 
their trail. In this extreme perplexity, one of the 
company was attracted by an indication of their 
course, which proved that the daughters shared the 
sylvan sagacity of their parents. "God bless my 
dear child," exclaimed Colonel Calloway; "she has 
proved that she had strength of mind in her deplo- 
rable condition to retain self-possession." At the 
same instant he picked up a little piece of ribbon, 



LIFE OF DANIEi. BO >N£. fW 

which he instantly recognized as his daughter's. 
She had evidently committed it unobserved to the 
air, to indicate the course of her captors. The trail 
was soon regained, and the company resumed their 
march with renewed alacrity. 

They were afterwards often at a loss to keep the 
trail, from the extreme care of the Indians to cover 
and destroy it. But still, in their perplexity, the sa- 
gacious expedient of the fair young captives put 
them right. A shred of their handkerchief, or of 
some part of their dress, wliich they had intrusted 
to the wind unobserved, indicated their course, and 
that the captives were thus far not only alive, but 
that their reasoning powers, unsubdued by fatigue, 
were active and buoyant. Next day, in passing 
places covered with mud, deposited by the dry 
branches on the way, the foot prints of the captives 
were distinctly traced, until the pursuers had learned 
to discriminate not only the number, but the peculiar 
form of each foot print. 

Late in the evening of the fifteenth day's pursuit, 
from a little eminence, they discovered in the dis- 
tance before them, through the woods, a smoke and 
the Hght of a fire. The palpitation of their paren- 
tal hearts may be easily imagined. They could 
not doubt that it was the camp of the captors al 
their children. The plan of recapture was intrus- 
ted entirely to Boone. He led his company as near 
the enemy as he deemed might be done with safety, 
and selecting a position under the shelter of a hill, 
ordered them to halt, with a view to passing the 

flight in that place. They then silently took food 
8* 



90 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 



as the agitation of their minds would allow. All 
but Calloway, another selected person of their num- 
ber, and himself, were permitted to he down, and 
get that sleep of which they had been so long de- 
prived. The three impatiently waited for midnight, 
when the sleep of the Indians would be most likely 
to be profound. They stationed the third person 
selected, on the top of the eminence, behind which 
they were encamped, as a sentinel to await a given 
signal from the fathers, which should be his indica- 
tion to fly to the camp and arouse the sleepers, and 
Dring them to their aid. Then faUing prostrate, they 
crept cautiously, and as it were by inches, towards 
the Indian camp. 

Having reached a covert of bushes, close by the 
Indian camp, and examined as well as they could by 
the distant light of the camp-fires, the order of their 
rifles, they began to push aside the bushes, and sur- 
vey the camp through the opening. Seventeen In- 
dians were stretched, apparently in sound sleep, on 
the ground. But they looked in vain among them 
for the dear objects of their pursuit. They were not 
long in discovering another camp a little remote 
from that of the Indians. They crawled cautiously 
round to take a survey of it. Here, to their inex- 
pressible joy, were their daughters in each others 
arms. Directly in front of their camp were two 
Indians, with their tomahawks and other weapons 
within their grasp. The one appeared to be in a 
sound sleep, and the other keeping the most circum- 
Bpe<.;tive vigils. 

The grand object now was to get possession of the 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 91 

prisoners without arousing their captors, the conse- 
quence of which it was obvious, would be the imme- 
diate destruction of the captives. Boone made a 
signal to Calloway to take a sure aim at the sleeping 
Indian, so as to be able to despatch him in a moment, 
if the emergency rendered that expedient necessary. 
Boone, the while, crawled round, so as to reach the 
waking Indian from behind; intending to spring 
upon him and strangle him, so as to prevent his mak- 
ing a noise to awaken the sleeper. But, unfortu- 
nately, this Indian instead of being asleep was wide 
awake, and on a careful look out. The shadow of 
Boone coming on them from behind, aroused him. 
He sprang erect, and uttered a yell that made the 
ancient woods ring, leaving no doubt that the other 
camp would be instantly alarmed. The captives, 
terrified by the war yell of their sentinels, added 
their screams of apprehension, and every thing was 
in a moment in confusion. The first movement of 
Boone was to fire. But the forbearance of Callo- 
way, and his own more prudent second thought, 
restrained him. It was hard to forego such a chance 
for vengeance, but their own lives and their chil- 
dren's would probably pay the forfeit, and they fired 
not. On the contrary, they surrendered themselves 
to the Indians, w ho rushed furiously in a mass around 
ihem. By significant gestures, and a few Indian 
words, which they had learned, they implored the 
lives of their captive children, and opportunity for 
a parley. Seeing them in their power, and compre- 
hending the language of defenceless suppliants, thcii 
fury was at length with some difficulty restrained 



93 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 



and appeased. They seemed evidently under the 
influence of a feehng of compassion towards the 
daughters, to which unquestionably the adventurous 
fathers were indebted, that their lives were not in- 
stantly sacrificed. Binding them firmly with cords, 
and surrounding them with sentinels, the Indians re- 
tired to their camp, not to resume their sleep, but to 
hold a council to settle the fate of their new pris- 
oners. 

What were the thoughts of the captive children, 
or of the disinterested and brave parents, as they 
found themselves bound, and once more in the power 
of their enemies — what was the bitter disappoint- 
ment of the one, and the agonizing filial apprehen- 
sion of the other — may be much more readily ima- 
gined than described. But the light of the dawn 
enabled the daughters to see, in the countenances 
of their fathers, as they lay bound and surrounded by 
fierce savages, unextinguishable firmness, and un- 
daunted resolution, and a consciousness of noble mo- 
tives; and they imbibed from the view something of 
the magnanimity of their parents, and assumed that 
demeanor of composure and resolute endurance 
which is always the readiest expedient to gain all the 
respect and forbearance that an Indian can grant. 

It would be difl&cult to fancy a state of more tortu- 
ring suspense than that endured by the companions 
of Boone and Calloway, who had been left behind 
the hill. Though they had slept httle since the 
commencement of the expedition, and had been en- 
couraged by the two fathers, their leaders to sleep 



LIFE OF D. MEL BOONE. 93 

that night, the emergency was too exciting to admit 
of sleep. 

Often, during the night, had thv°y aroused them- 
selves, in expectation of the return of the fathers, or 
of a signal for action. But the night wore away, and 
the morning dawned, without bringing either the one 
or the other. But notwithstanding this distressing 
state of suspense, they had a confidence too un- 
doubting in the firmness and prudence of their leader, 
to think of approaching the Indian camp until they 
should receive the appointed signal. 

It would naturally be supposed that the delibera- 
tion of the Indian council, which had been held to 
settle the fate of Boone and Calloway, would end in 
sentencing them to run the gauntlet, and then amidst 
the brutal laughter and derision of their captors, 
to be burnt to death at a slow fire. Had the 
pnsoners betrayed the least signs of fear, the least 
indications of a subdued mind, such would in all 
probability have been the issue of the Indian con- 
sultation. Such, however, was not the result of the 
council. It was decreed that they should be killed 
with as little noise as possible ; their scalps taken as 
trophies, and that their daughters should remain 
captives as before. The lenity of this sentence may 
be traced to two causes. The daring hardihood, 
the fearless intrepidity of the adventure, inspired 
them with unquaHfied admiration for their captives. 
Innumerable instances have since been recorded, 
where the most inveterate enemies have boldly ven- 
tured into the camp of their enemy, have put them- 
elves in their power, defied them to their face and 



94 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

have created an admiration of their fearless darings 
which has caused that they have been spared and 
dismissed unmolested. This sort of feeling had its 
influence on the present occasion in favor of the 
prisoners. Another extenuating influence was, that 
hostilities between the white and red men in the 
west had as yet been uncommon ; and the mutual 
fury had not been exasperated by murder and re- 
taliation. 

As soon as it was clear morning Hght, the In- 
dian camp was in motion. As a business pre- 
liminary to their march, Boone and Calloway were 
led out and bound to a tree, and the warriors 
were selected who were to despatch them with their 
tomahawks. The place of their execution was se- 
lected at such a distance from their camp, as that the 
daughters might not be able to witness it. The 
two prisoners were al "tady at the spot, awaiting the 
fatal blow, when a di.^harge of rifles, cutting down 
two of the savages at the first shot, arrested their 
proceedings. Another and another discharge fol- 
lowed. The Indians were as yet partially supplied 
with fire arms, and had not lost any of their original 
dread of the effects of this artificial thunder, and 
the invisible death of the balls. They were igno 
rant, moreover, of the number of their assailants, 
and naturally apprehended it to be greater than it 
was. They raised a yell of confusion, and disper- 
sed in every direction, leaving their dead behind, 
and the captives to their deliverers. The next mo- 
ment the children were in the arms of their parents; 
and the whole party, in the unutterable joy of con- 



96 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONfi. 

quest and deliverance, were on their way home- 
wards. 

It need hardly be added that the brave associates 
of the expedition who had been left in camp, hav- 
ing waited the signal for the return of Boone and 
Calloway, until their patience and forbearance waa 
exhausted, aware that something serious must have 
prevented their return, reconnoitered the movement 
of the Indians as they moved from their camp to 
despatch their two prisoners, and fired upon them 
at the moment they were about to put their sen- 
tence into execution. 

About this time a new element began to exaspe- 
rate and extend the ravages of Indian warfare, 
along the whole line of the frontier settlements. 
The war of Independence had already begun to 
rage. The influence and resources of Great Britain 
extended along the immense chain of our frontier, 
from the north-eastern part of Vermont and New 
York, all the way to the Mississippi. Nor did this 
nation, to her everlasting infamy, hesitate to en- 
gage these infuriate allies of the wilderness, whose 
known rule of warfare was indiscriminate vengeance, 
without reference to the age or sex of the foe, as 
auxiliaries in the war. 

As this biographical sketch of the life of Boone 
is inseparably interwoven with this border scene of 
massacres, plunderings, burnings, and captivities,^ 
which swept the incipient northern and western set- 
tlements with desolation, it may not be amiss to 
take a brief retrospect of the state of these settle* 
ments at this conjuncture in the Hfe of Boone. 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONB. 



CHAPTER VII, 



Settlement of Hanodsburgh — Indian mode of besieging and warfare^. 
Fortitude and privation of the Pioneers — The Indians attack Har* 
rodsburgh and Boonesborough — Description of a Station — Attack 
of Bryant's Station. 

A ROAD sufficient for the passage of pack hoises in 
single file, had been opened from the settlements al- 
ready commenced on Holston river to Boonesbo- 
rough in Kentucky. It was an avenue which soon 
brought other adventurers, with their families to the 
settlement. On the northern frontier of the country, 
the broad and unbroken bosom of the Ohio opened 
an easy liquid highway of access to the country. 
The first spots selected as landing places and points 
of ingress into the country, were Limestone — now 
Maysville — at the mouth of Limestone creek, and 
Beargrass creek, where Louisville now stands. 
Boonesborough and Harrodsburgh were the cnly 
stations in Kentucky sufiiciently strong to be safe 
from the incursions of the Indians; and even these 
places afforded no security a foot beyond the palis 
ades. These two places were the central points to- 
wards which emigrants directed their course from 
Limestone and Louisville. The routes from these 
two places were often ambushed by the Indians, 
But notwithstanding the danger of approach to the 
new country, and the incessant exposure during the 
residence there, immigrants continued to arrive at 
the stations. 



98 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

The first female white setters of Harrodsburgh, 
were Mrs. Denton, McGary, and Hogan, who came 
with their husbandly 'aiid famiUes. A number of 
other famihes soon followed, among whom, in 1776, 
came Benjamin Logan, with his wife and family. 
These were ail families of respectability and stand 
ing, and noted in the subsequent history of the 
country. 

Hordes of savages were soon afterwards ascer- 
tained to have crossed the Ohio, with the purpose 
to extirpate these germs of social establishments in 
Kentucky. According to their usual mode of war- 
fare, they separated into numerous detachments, 
and dispersed in all directions through the forests. 
This gave them the aspect of numbers and strength 
beyond reality. It tended to increase the appre- 
hensions of the recent immigrants, inspiring the na* 
tural impressions, that the woods in all directions 
were full of Indians. It enabled them to fight in 
detail, — to assail different settlements at the same 
time, and to fill the whole country with consterna- 
tion. 

Their mode of besieging these places, though not 
at all conformable to the notions of a siege derived 
from the tactics of a civilized people, was dictated 
by the most profound practical observation, opera- 
ting upon existing circumstances. Without cannon 
or scaling ladders, their hope of carrying a station, 
or fortified place, was founded upon starving the in- 
mates, cutting off their supplies of water, killing 
them, as they exposed themselves, in detail, or get- 
ting possession of the station by some of the arts of 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 99 

dissimulation. Caution in their tactics is still more 
strongly inculcated than bravery. Their first object 
is to secure themselves; their next, to kill their en- 
emy. This is the universal Indian maxim from No- 
va Zembla to Cape Horn. In besieging a place, 
they are seldom seen in force upon any particular 
quarter. Acting in small parties, they disperse 
themselves, and lie concealed among bushes or 
weeds, behind trees or stumps. They ambush the 
paths to the barn, spring, or field. They discharge 
their rifle or let fly their arrow, and glide away with- 
out being seen, content that their revenge should 
issue from an invisible source. They kill the cattle, 
watch the watering places, and cut off' all supplies. 
During the night, they creep, with the inaudible 
and stealthy step dictated by the animal instinct, to 
a concealed position near one of the gates, and pa- 
tiently pass many sleepless nights, so that they may 
finally cut off'some ill-fated person, who incautious^ 
comes forth in the morning. During the day, if 
there be near the station grass, weeds, bushes, or 
any distinct elevation of the soil, however small, 
they crawl, as prone as reptiles, to the place of con- 
cealment, and whoever exposes the smallest part of 
his body through any part or chasm, receives their 
shot, behind the smoke of which they instantly 
cower back to their retreat. When they find their 
foe abroad, they boldly rush upon him, and make 
him prisoner, or take his scalp. At times they ap- 
proach the walls or palisades with the most auda- 
cious daring, and attempt to fire them, or beat down 
the gate. They practice, with the utmost adroit- 



100 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

ness, the stratagem of a false alarm on one side 
when the real assault is intended for the other. 
With untiring perseverance, when their stock of 
provisions is exhausted, they set forth to hunt, as on 
common occasions, resuming their station near the 
bcseiged place as soon as they are supplied. 

It must be confessed, that they had many motives 
to this persevering and deadly hostility, apart from 
their natural propensity to war. They saw this 
new and hated race of pale faces gradually getting 
possession of their hunting grounds, and cutting 
down their forests. They reasoned forcibly and 
justly, that the time, when to oppose these new in- 
truders with success, was to do it before they had 
become numerous and strong in diffused population 
and resources. Had they possessed the skill of cor* 
porate union, combining individual effort witii a 
general concert of attack, and directed their united 
force against each settlement in succession, there is 
little doubt, that at this time they might have extir- 
pated the new inhabitants from Kentucky, and have 
restored it to the empire of the wild beasts and the 
red men. But in the order of events it was other- 
wise arranged. They massacred, they burnt, and 
plundered, and destroyed. They killed cattle, and 
carried off the horses; — inflicting terror, poverty, 
and every species of dif tress; but were not able to 
make themselves absolute masters of a single station. 

It has been found by experiment, that the settlers 
in such predicaments of danger and apprehension, 
act under a most spirit-stirring excitement, which, 
uotwithstanding its alarms^ is not without its plea^ 



LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 



101 



sures. They acquired foiiitJide, dexterity, and that 
kind of courage which results from hecoming fa- 
miliar with exposure. 

The settlements becoming extended, the Indians, 
in their turn, were obliged to put themselves on the 
defensive. They cowered in the distant woods for 
concealment, or resorted to them for hunting. In 
these intervals, the settlers, who had acquired a 
kind of instinctive intuition to know when their foe 
was near them, or had retired to remoter forests, 
went forth to plough their corn, gather in their 
harvests, collect their cattle, and pursue their agri- 
cultural operations. These were their holyday sea- 
sons for hunting, during which they often exchanged 
shots with their foe. The night, as being most se- 
cure from Indian attack, was the common season 
selected for journeying from garrison to ga/rison. 

We, who live in the midst of scenes of abundance 
and tranquillity can hardly imagine how a country 
could fill with inhabitants, under so many circum- 
stances of terror, in addition to all the hardships 
incident to the commencement of new estabhsh- 
ments in the wilderness; such as want of society, 
want of all the regular modes of supply, in regard 
to the articles most indispensable in every stage of 
the civilized condition. There were no mills, no 
stores, no regular supplies of clothing, salt, sugar, 
and the luxuries of tea and coffee. But all these 
dangers and difficulties notwithstanding, under the 
influence of an inexplicable propensity, families in 
the old settlements used to comfort ?.nd abundance, 
were constantly arriving to encounter all these dan- 



102 LIFE OP DANIEL IJOONE. 

gers and privations. Thej began to spread ovei 
the extensive and fertile country in every direction 
— presenting such numerous and dispersed marks to 
Indian hostihty, red men became perplexed, amidsl 
so many conflicting temptations to vengeance, vt^hich 
to select. 

The year 1776 was memorable in the annals oi 
Kentucky, as that in which General George Rogers 
Clark iirst visited it, unconscious, it may be, of the 
imperishable honors which the western country 
would one day reserve for him. This same year 
Captain Wagin arrived in the country, and^a:e<:/ in 
a solitary cabin on Hinkston's Fork of the Licking. 

In the autumn of this year, most of the recent 
immigrants to Kentucky returned to the old settle- 
ments, principally in Virginia. They carried with 
them strong representations, touching the fertility 
and advantages of their new residence; and com- 
municated the impulse of their hopes and fears ex 
tensively among their fellow-citizens by sympathy 

The importance of the new settlement was already 
deemed to be such, that on the meeting of the legis- 
lature of Virginia, the governor recommended that 
the south-western part of the county of Fincastle — 
so this vast tract of country west of the Alleghanies 
bad hitherto been considered — should be erected 
into a separate county by the name of Kentucky. 

This must be considered an important era in the 
history of the country. The new county became 
entitled to two representatives in the legislature of 
Virginia, to a court and judge; in a word, to all the 
customary civil, military, and judicial officers of a 



LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 103 

new county. In the year 1777, the county was du- 
ly organized, according to the act of the A^irginia 
legislature. Among the names of the first officers 
in the new county, we recognize those of Floyd, 
Bowman, Logan, and Todd. 

Harrodsburgh, the strongest and most populous 
station in the country, had not. hitherto been assail- 
ed by the Indians. Early in the spring of 1777. 
they attacked a small body of improvers marching 
to Harrodsburgh, about four miles from that place. 
Mr. Kay, afterwards General Kay, and his brother 
were of the party. The latter was killed, and an- 
other man made prisoner. The fortunate escape of 
James Kay, then fifteen years old, was the proba- 
ble cause of the saving of Harrodsburgh from des- 
truction. Flying from the scene of attack and the 
death of his brother, he reached the station and 
gave the inhabitants information, that £i large body 
of Indians was marching to attack the place. The 
Indians themselves, aware that the inhabitants had 
been premonished of their approach, seem to have 
been disheartened; for they did not reach the sta- 
tion till the next day. Of course, it had been put 
in the best possible state of defence, and prepared 
for their reception. 

The town was now invested by the savage force, 
and something like a regular siege commenced. A 
Dnsk firing ensued. In the course of the day the In- 
dians left one of their dead to fall into the hands of 
the besieged — a rare occurrence, as it is one of tiieir 
most invariable customs to remove their wounded 
and dend fiom iJio possession of the oTu»rry. The 



104 LITE OP DANIEL BOONE. 

besieged had four men wounded and one of them 
mortally. The Indians, unacquainted with the 
mode of conducting a siege, and little accustomed 
to open and fair fight, and dispirited by the vigor 
ous reception given them by the station, soon de- 
camped, and dispersed in the forests, to supply 
themselves with provisions by hunting. 

On the 15th of April, 1777, a body of one hundred 
savages invested Boonesborough, the residence of 
Daniel Boone. The greater number of the Indians 
had fire arms, though some of them were still armed 
with bows and arrows. This station, having its de- 
fence conducted by such a gallant leader, gave 
them such a warm reception that they were glad to 
draw off; though not till they had killed one and 
wounded four of the inhabitants. Their loss could 
not be ascertained, .as they carefully removed their 
dead and wounded. 

In July following, the residence of Boone was 
again besieged by a body of Indians, whose number 
was increased to two hundred. With their num- 
bers, their hardihood and audacity were increased 
in proportion. To prevent the neighboring stations 
from sending assistance, detachments from their bo- 
dy assailed most of the adjacent settlements at the 
same time. The gallant inmates of the station made 
them repent their temerity, though, as formerly, 
with some loss; one of their number having been 
killed and two wounded. Seven of the Indians were 
distinctly counted from the fort among the slain; 
though, according to custom, the bodies were remo- 
ved. After a close siege, and almost constant firing 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 105 

d^ ing two days, the Indians raised a yell of disap- 
pomtment, and disappeared in the forests. 

In order to present distinct views of the sort of 
enemy, with whom Boone had to do, and to present 
pictures of the aspect of Indian warfare in those 
times, we might give sketches of the repeated sieges 
of Harrodsburgh and Booneshorough, against which 
—as deemed the strong holds of the Long-knife^ as 
they called the Americans — their most formidable 
and repeated eiforts were directed. There is such 
a sad and dreary uniformity in these narratives, that 
the history of one may almost stand for that of all. 
They always present more or less killed and woun- 
ded on the part of the stations, and a still greater 
number on that of the Indians. Their attacks of 
stations having been uniformly unsuccessful, th 
returned to their original modes of warfare, dispe 
sing themselves in small bodies over all the country, 
and attacking individual settlers in insulated cabins, 
and destroying women and children. But as most 
of these annals belong to the general history of Ken- 
tucky, and do not particularly tend to develop the 
character of the subject of this biography, we shall 
pretermit them, with a single exception. At the 
expense of an anachronism, and as a fair sample of 
the rest, we shall present that, as one of the most 
prominent Indian sieges recorded in these early an- 
nals. It will not be considered an episode, if it tend 
to convey distinct ideas of the structure and form of 
a station, and the modes of attack and defence in 
those times. It was in such scenes that the fearless 
daring, united with the cool, prudent, and yet cffi- 



106 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

cient counsels of Daniel Boone, were peculiairljf 
conspicuous. With this view we oiler a somewhat 
detailed account of the attack of Bryant's station. 

As we know of no place, nearer than the sources 
of the Mississippi, or the Rocky Mountains, where 
the refuge of a station is now requisite for security 
from the Indians; as the remains of those that were 
formerly built are fast mouldering to decay; and as 
in a few years history will be the only depository 
of what the term station imports, we deem it right, 
in this place, to present as graphic a view as we 
may, of a station, as we have seen them in their 
ruins in various points of the west. 

The first immigrants to Tennessee and Kentucky, 
as we have seen, came in pairs and small bodies. 
These pioneers on their return to the old settle- 
ments, brought back companies and societies. — 
Friends and connections, old and young, mothers 
and daughters, flocks, herds, domestic animals, and 
the family dogs, all set forth on the patriarchal em- 
igration for the land of promise together. No dis- 
ruption of the tender natal and moral ties; no an- 
nihilation of the reciprocity of domestic kindness, 
friendship, and love, took place. The cement and 
and panoply of affection, and good will bound them 
together at once in the social tie, and the union for 
defence. Like the gregarious tenants of the air in 
their annual migrations, they brought their true 
home, that is to say their charities with them. In 
their state of extreme isolation from the world they 
had left, the kindly social propensities were found 
to grow more strong in the wilderness. The cur- 



LEPB OF DANIEL BOONE. 107 

rent of human affections in fact naturally flows in a 
deeper and more vigorous tide, in proportion as it is 
diverted into fewer channels. 

These immigrants to the Bloody Ground, coming 
to survey new aspects of nature, new forests and 
climates, and to encounter new privations, difl[icul- 
ties and dangers, were bound together by a new sa- 
crament of friendship, new and unsworn oaths, to 
stand by each other for life and for death. How 
often have we heard the remains of this primitive 
race of Kentucky deplore the measured distance 
and jealousy, the heathen rivalry and selfishness of 
the present generation, in comparison with the uni- 
ty of heart, dangers and fortunes of these primeval 
times — reminding one of the simple kindness, the 
community of property, and the union of heart 
among the first Christians ! 

Another circumstance of this picture ought to be 
redeemed from oblivion. We suspect that the gen- 
eral impressions of the readers of this day is, that 
the first hunters and settlers of Kentucky and Ten- 
nessee were a sort of demi-savages. Imagination 
lepiCvS them with long beard, and a costume of 
rikins, rude, fierce, and repulsive. Nothing can be 
wider from the fact. These progenitors of the west 
were generally men of noble, square, erect forms, 
broad chests, clear, bright, ti-uth-telling eyes, and of 
vigorous intellects. 

All this is not only matter of historical record, but 
in the natural order of things. The first settlers of 
America were originally a noble stock. These, 
tbeir descendants, had been reared under circum- 



108 UTE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

«ances every way calculated to give them manly 
fceauty and noble forms. They had breathed a free 
and a salubrious air. The field and forest exercise 
yielded them salutary viands, and appetite and di- 
gestion corresponding. Life brought them the sen- 
sations of high health, herculean vigor, and redun- 
dant joy. 

When a social band of this description had plan- 
ted their feet on the virgin soil, the first object was 
to fix on a spot, central to the most fertile tract of 
land that could be found, combining the advantages 
usually sought by the first settlers. Among these 
was, that the station should be on the summit of a 
gentle swell, where pawpaw, cane, and wild clover, 
marked exuberant fertility; and where the trees 
were so sparse, and the soil beneath them so free 
from underbrush, that the hunter could ride at half 
speed. The virgin soil, as yet friable, untrodden, 
and not cursed with the blight of politics, party, and 
feud, yielded, with little other cultivation than plant- 
ing, from eighty to a hundred bushels of maize to 
the acre, and all other edibles suited to the soil and 
climate, in proportion. 

The next thing, after finding this central nucleus 
of a settlement, was to convert it into a station^ an 
erection which now remains to be described. It 
was a desirable requisite, that a stcition should in 
close or command a flush limestone spring, for wa- 
ter for the settlement. The contiguity of a salt 
lick and a sugar orchard, though not indispensable, 
was a very desirable circumstance. The next pre- 
liminary step was to clear a considerable area, so as 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 



109 



CO leave nothing within a considerable distance of 
the station that could shelter an enemy from obser- 
vation and a shot. If a spring were not inclosed, oi 
a well dug within, as an Indian siege seldom lasted 
beyond a few days, it was customary, in periods of 
alarm to have a reservoir of some sort within the 
station, that should be tilled with water enough to 
supply the garrison, during the probable continu- 
ance of a siege. It was deemed a most important 
consideration, that the station should overlook and 
command as much of the surrounding country as 
possible. 

The form was a perfect parallelogram, including 
from a half to a whole acre. A trench was then 
dug four or hve feet deep, and large and contiguous 
pickets planted in this trench, so as to form a com- 
pact wall from ten to twelve feet high above the 
soil. The pickets were of hard and durable timber, 
about a foot in diameter. The soil about them wag 
rammed hard. They formed a rampart beyond the 
power of man to leap, climb, or by unaided physical 
strength to overthrow. At the angles were small 
projecting squares, of still stronger material and 
planting, technically called flankers^ with oblique 
port-holes, so as that the sentinel within could rake 
the external front of the station, without being ex- 
posed to shot from without. Two folding gates in 
the front and rear, swinging on prodigious wooden 
hinges, gave egress and ingress to men and teams in 
times of security. 

In periods of alarm a trusty sentinel on the roof 

of the building was So stationed, as to be able to 
10 



110 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 



descrj every suspicious object while yet in the dis- 
tance. The gates were always firmly barred by 
night; and sentinels took their alternate watch, and 
relieved each other until morning. Nothing in the 
line of fortification can be imagined more easy of 
construction, or a more effectual protection against 
a savage enemy, than this simple erection. Though 
the balls of the smallest dimensions of cannon would 
have swept them away with ease, they were proof 
against the Indian rifle, patience, and skill. The 
only expedient of the red men was to dig under 
them and undermine them, or destroy them by fire; 
and even this could not be done without exposing 
them to the rifles of the flankers. Of course, there 
are few recorded instances of their having been ta- 
ken, when defended by a garrison, guided by such 
men as Daniel Boone. 

Their regular form, and their show of security, 
rendered these walled cities in the central wilder- 
ness delightful spectacles in the eye of immigrants 
who had come two hundred leagues without seeing 
a human habitation. Around the interior of these 
walls the habitations of the immigrants arose, and 
the remainder of the surface was a clean-tuifed area 
for wrestling and dancing, and the vigorous and 
athletic amusements of the olden time, it is ques- 
tionable if heartier dinners and profounder sleep 
and more exhilarating balls and parties fall to the lo 
of their descendants, who ride in coaches and dwell 
in mansions. Venison and wild turkeys, sweet po- 
tatoes and pies, smoked on their table ; and persim- 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 1 L Ji 

men and maple beer, stood them well instead of the 
poisonous whisky of their children. 

The community, of course, passed their social eve- 
nings together; and while the fire blazed bright 
within the secure square, the far howl of wolves, or 
even the distant war-whoop of the savages, sounded 
in the ear of the tranquil in-dwellers like the driving 
storm pouring on the sheltering roof above the head 
of the traveller safely reposing in his bed; that is, 
brought the contrast of comfort and security with 
more home-felt influence to their bosom. 

Such a station was Bryant's, no longer ago than 
1782. It was the nucleus of the settlements of that 
rich and delightful country, of which at present 
Lexington is the centre. There were but two oth- 
ers of any importance, at this time north of Ken- 
tucky river. It was more open to attack than any 
other in the country. The Miami on the north, and 
the Licking on the south of the Ohio, were long 
canals, which floated the Indian canoes from the 
northern hive of the savages, between the lakes and 
the Ohio, directly to its vicinity. 

In the summer of this year a grand Indian assem- 
blage took place at Chillicothe, a famous central In- 
dian town on the Little Miami. The Cherokees, 
Wyandots, Tawas, Pottawattomies, and most of the 
tribes bordering on the lakes, were represented in it. 
Besides their chiefs and some Canadians, they were 
aided by the counsels of the two Girtys, and McKee, 
renegade whites. We have made diligent enquiry 
touching the biography of these men, particularly 
Simon Girty, a wretch of most infamous notoriety in 



112 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE, 

those times, as a more successful instigator of Indian 
assault and massacre, than any name on record. 
Scarcely a tortured captive escaped from the north- 
ern Indians, who could not tell the share which this 
villain had in his sufferings — no burning or murder 
of prisoners, at which he had not assisted by hi? 
presence or his counsels. These refugees from oui 
white settlements, added the calculation and powei 
of combining of the whites to the instinctive cunning 
and ferocity of the savages. They possessed their 
thirst for blood without their active or passive cour- 
age — blending the bad points of character in the 
whites and Indians, without the good of either. The 
cruelty of the Indians had some show of palliating 
circumstances, in the steady encroachments of the 
whites upon them. Theirs was gratuitous, cold- 
blooded, and without visible motive, except that they 
appeared to hate the race more inveterately for hav- 
ing fled from it. Yet Simon Girty, hke the Indians 
among whom he lived, sometimes took the freak of 
kindness, nobody could divine why, and he once or 
twice saved an unhappy captive from being roasted 
alive. 

This vile renegade, consulted by the Indians as 
an oracle, lived in plenty, smoked his pipe, and 
drank off his whisky in his log palace. He was 
seen abroad clad in a ruffled shirt, a red and blue 
uniform, with pantaloons and gaiters to match. He 
was belted with dirks and pistols, and wore a watch 
with enormous length of chain, and most glaring 
ornaments, all probably the spoils of murdei. So 
habited, he strutted, in the enormity of his cruelty 



LIFE OF DVNir.Ii IJOONE. 



113 



in view of the ill-Aited captives of the Indians, like 
the peacock spreading his morning plunaage. There 
is little doubt that his capricious acts of saving the 
few that were spared through his intercession, were 
modified results of vanity; and that they were spared 
to make a display of his power, and the extent of 
his influence among the Indians. 

The assemblage of Indians bound to the assaul' 
of Bryant's station, gathered round the shrine of 
Simon Girty, to hear the response of this oracle 
touching the intended expedition. He is said to 
have painted to them, in a set speech, tiie abundance 
and dehght of the fair valleys of Kan-tuck-ee, for 
which so mucli blood of red men had been shed— 
the land of clover, deer, and buffaloes. He descri- 
bed the gradual encroaciiment of the whites, and 
the certainty that they would soon occupy the whole 
land. He proved the necessity of a vigorous, united, 
and persevering eifor!; against them, now wliile they 
were feeble, and had scarcely gained foot-hold on 
the soil, if they ever intended to regain possession 
of their ancient, rich, and rightful domain; assuring 
them, that as th'ngs now went on, they would soon 
have no hunting grounds worth retaining, no blan- 
kets with which to clothe their naked backs, or whis- 
ky to warm and cheer their desolate hearts. They 
were advised to descend the Miami, cross the Ohio, 
ascent the Licking, paddling their canoes to the im- 
mediate vicinity of Bryant's station, which he coun- 
selled them to attack. 

Forthwith, the mass of biped wolves raised their 

murderous yell, as thev started for their canoes oa 
' 10* 



4 lilFE OF DANIEL BOOHE. 

the Miami. Girty, in his ruffled shirt and soldier 
coat, stalked at their head, silently feeding upon his 
prowess and grandeur. 

The station against which they were destined, in- 
closed forty cabins. They arrived before it on the 
fifteenth of August, in the night. The inhabitants 
were advertised of their arrival in the morning, by 
being fired upon as they opened the gates. The 
time of their arrival was apparently providential. 
In two hours most of the efficient male inmates of 
the station were to have marched to the aid of two 
other stations, w^hich were reported to have been at- 
tacked. This place would thus have been left com- 
pletely defenceless. As soon as the garrison saw 
themselves besieged, they found means to despatch 
one of their number to Lexington, to announce the 
assault and crave aid. Sixteen mounted men, and 
thirty-one on foot, were immediately despatched to 
their assistance. 

The number of the assailants amounted to at least 
six hundred. In conformity with the common modes 
of their warfare, they attempted to gain the place by 
stratagem. The great body concealed themselves 
among high weeds, on the opposite side of the station, 
within pistol shot of the spring which supplied it 
with water. A detachment of ci hundred commen- 
ced a false attack on the south-east angle, with a 
view to draw the whole attention of the garrison to 
that point. They hoped that while the chief force 
of the station crowded there, the opposite point 
would be kft defenceless. In this instance they 
reckoned without their host. The people penetrated 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONK, 115 

their deception, and instead of returning their fire, 
commenced wliat ho-d been imprudently neglected, 
the repairing their palisades, and putting the station 
in a better condition of defence. The tall and lux- 
uriant strammony weeds instructed these wary back- 
woodsmen to suspect that a host of their tawny foe 
lay hid beneath their sheltering fohage, lurking for a 
chance to fire upon them, as they should come forth 
for water. 

Let modern wives, who refuse to follow their hus- 
bands abroad, alleging the danger of the voyage or 
journey, or the unhealthiness of the proposed resi 
dence, or because the removal will separate them 
from the pleasures of fashion and society, contem- 
plate the example of the wives of the defenders of 
this station. These noble mothers, wives, and daugh- 
ters, assuring the men that there was no probability 
that the Indians would fire upon them, offered to gr> 
out and draw water for the supply of the garrison, 
and that even if they did shoot dov/n a few of them, 
it would not reduce the resources of the garrison as 
would the kiUing of the men. The illustrious hero- 
ines took up their bucksts, and marched out to the 
spring, espying here and there a painted face, or an 
Indian body crouched under the covert of the weeds. 
Whether their courage or their beauty fascinated 
Jhe Indians to suspend their fire, does not appear. 
But it was so, that these generous women came and 
went until the reservoir was amply supplied with 
Water. Who will doubt that the husbands of such 
vives must have been alike gallant and affectionate^ 

After this example, it wa« not diflicult to procure 



116 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

some young volunteers to tempt the Indians in the 
same way. As was expected, they liad scarcely ad- 
vanced beyond their station, before a hundred Indi- 
ans fired a shower of balls upon them, happily too 
remote to do more than inflict slight wounds with 
spent balls. They retreated within the pa,lisades, 
and the whole Indian force, seeing no results from 
stratagem, rose from their covert and rushed towards 
the palisade. The exasperation of their rage may 
be imagined, when they found every thing prepared 
for their reception. A well aimed fire drove them 
to a more cautious distance. Some of the more 
audacious of their number, however, ventured so 
near a less exposed point, as to be able to discharge 
burning arrows upon the roofs of the houses. Some 
of them were fired and burnt. But an easterly wind 
providentially arose at the moment, and secured the 
mass of the habitations from the further spread of 
the flames. These they could no longer reach with 
their burning arrows. 

The enemy cowered back, and crouched to their 
covert in the weeds ; where, panther-like, they waited 
for less dangerous game. They had divided, on 
being informed, that aid was expected from Lexing- 
ton; and they arranged an ambuscade to intercept 
it, on its approach to the garrison. When the rein- 
forcement, consisting of forty-six persons, came in 
sight, the firing had wholly ceased, and the invisible 
enemy were profoundly still. The auxiliaries hur- 
ried on in reckless confidence, under the impression 
that they had come on a false alarm. A lane opened 
an avenue to the station, through a thick cornfield. 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 



in 



This lane was waj-iaid on either side, by Indians, 
for six hundred yards, Foriiuiately, it was mid-sum- 
mer, and dry; and the horsemen raised so tiiick a 
cloud of dust, that the Indians could fire only at ran- 
dom amidst the palpable cloud, and happily killed 
not a single man. The footmen were less fortunate. 
Being behind the horse, as soon as they heard the 
firing, they dispersed into the thick corn, in hopes to 
reach the garrison unobserved. They were inter- 
cepted by masses of the savages, who threw them- 
selves between them and the station. Hard lighting 
ensued, in which two of the footmen were killed and 
four wounded. Soon after the detachment had 
joined their friends, and the Indians were again 
crouching close in their covert, the numerous flocks 
and herds of the station came in from the woods as 
usual, quietly ruminating, as they made their way 
towards their night-pens. Upon these harmless ani- 
mals the Indians wreaked unmolested revenge, and 
completely destroyed them. 

A little after sunset the famous Simon, in all his 
official splendor, covertly approached the garrison, 
mounted a stump, whence he could be heard by the 
people of the station, and holding a flag of truce, 
demanded a parley and the surrender of the place. 
He managed his proposals with no small degree of 
art, assigning, in imitation of the commanders of what 
are called civilized armies, that his proposals were 
dictated by humanity and a wish to spare the effusion 
of blood. He affirmed, that in case of a prompt sur- 
render, he could answer for the safety of the priso- 
ners; but that in the event of taking the garrison by 



118 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

storm, he could not; that cannon and a rfiinforcement 
were approaching, in which case they must be aware 
that their paHsades could no longer interpose any re- 
sistance to their attack, or secure them from the ven- 
geance of an exasperated foe. He calculated that 
his imposing language would have the more effect in 
producing belief and consternation, inasmuch as the 
garrison must know, that the same foe had used can- 
non in the attack of Ruddle's and Martin's stations. 
Two of their number had been already slain, and 
there were four wounded in the garrison ; and some 
faces were seen to blanch as Girty continued his har 
angue of menace, and insidious play upon their fears. 
Some of the more considerate of the garrison, appri- 
sed by the result, of the folly of allowing such a ne- 
gotiation to intimidate the garrison in that way, called 
out to shoot the rascal, adding the customary Ken- 
tucky epithet. Girty insisted upon the universal 
protection every where accorded to a flag of truce, 
while this parley lasted ; and demanded with great 
assumed dignity, if they did not know who it was 
that thus addressed them? 

A spirited young man, named Reynolds, of whom 
the most honorable mention is made in the subsequent 
annals of the contests with the Indians, was selected 
by the garrison to reply to the renegado Indian nego- 
tiator. His object seems to have been to remove the 
depression occasioned by Girty's speech, by treating 
it with derision; and perhaps to establish a reputation 
for successful waggery, as he had already for hard 
6ghting. 

"You ask," answered he, "if we do not know youf 



LIFB OP DANIEI. BOONE. 



119 



Know you! Yes. We know you too well. Know 
Simon Girty! Yes. He is the renegado, cowardly 
villain, who loves to murder women and children, 
especially those of his own people. Know Simon 
Girty! Yes. His father was a panther and his dam 
a wolf. I have a worthless dog, that kills lambs. 
Instead of shooting him, I have named him Simon 
Girty. You expect reinforcements and canr.on, do 
you? Cowardly wretches, like you, that make war 
upon women and children, would not dare to touch 
them off, if you had them. We expect reinforce- 
ments, too, and in numbers to give a short account 
of the murdering cowards that follow you. Even if 
you could batter down our pickets, I, for one, hold 
your people in too much contempt to discharge rifles 
at them. Should you see cause to enter our fort, I 
have been roasting a great number of hickory 
switches, with which we mean to whip your naked 
cut-throats out of the country." 

Simon, apparently little edified or flattered by this 
speech, wished him some of his hardest curses; and 
affecting to deplore the obstinacy and infatuation of 
the garrison, the ambassador of ruffled shirt and sol- 
dier coat withdrew. The besieged gave a good ac- 
count of every one, who came near enough to take a 
fair shot. But before morning they decamped, 
marching direct to the Blue Licks, where they ob- 
tained very different success, and a most signal and 
bloody triumph. We shall there again meet Daniel 
Boone, in his accustomed traits of heroism and mag- 
nanimity. 



liIF£ OF DANIEL UOONE. 121 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Boone being attacked by two Indians near the Blue Licks, kills them 
both — Is afterwards taken prisoner and marched to Old Chillicotbe 
•—Is adopted by the Indians — Indian ceremonies. 

We return to the subject of our memoir, from 
which the reader may imagine we have wandered 
too long. He had ah'eady conducted the defence 
of Boonesborough, during two Indian sieges. The 
general estimate of his activity, vigilance, courage, 
and enterprise, w^as constantly rising. By the Indi- 
ans he was regarded as the most formidable and in- 
telhgent captain of the Long-knife; and by the 
settlers and immigrants as a disinterested and heroic 
patriarch of the infant settlements. He often sup- 
plied destitute families gratuitously with game. 
He performed the duties of surveyor and spy, gen- 
erally as a volunteer, and without compensation. 
When immigrant families were approaching the 
country, he often went out to meet them and con- 
duct them to the settlements. Such, in general, 
were the paternal feeHngs of the pioneers of this 
young colony. 

The country was easily and amply supplied with 
meat from the chase, and with vegetables from the 
fertility of the soil. The hardy settlers could train 
themselves without difficulty to dispense with many 
things which habit and long use in the old settle- 
ments had led them to consider as necessaries. But 
10 every form of civilized communities salt is an 
11 



i22 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE 

indispensable article. The settlement of Boones. 
borough had been fixed near a lick, with a view to 
the supply of that article. But the amount was 
found to be very inadequate to the growing de- 
mand. The settlement deemed it necessary to send 
out a company to select a place where the whole 
country could be supplied with that article at a 
reasonable rate. 

Captain Boone was deputed by the settlers to 
this service. He selected thirty associates, and set 
out on the first of January, 1779, for the Blue 
Licks, on Licking river, a well known stream emp- 
tying into the Ohio, opposite where Cincinnati now 
stands. They arrived at the place, and successfully 
commenced their operations. Boone, instead of 
taking a part in the diurnal and uninterrupted la 
bor of evaporating the water, performed the more 
congenial duty of hunting to keep the company in 
provisions, while they labored. In this pursuit he 
had one day wandered some distance from the bank 
of the river. Two Indians, armed with muskets, — 
for they had now generally added these efficient 
weapons to their tomahawks — came upon him. His 
first thought was to retreat. But he discovered 
from their nimbleness, that this v. as impossible. 
His second thought was resistance, and he slipped 
behind a tree to await their coming within rifle 
shot. He then exposed himself so as to attract their 
aim. The foremost levelled his musket. Boone, 
who could dodge the flash, at the puUing of the tng- 
ger, dropped behind his tree unhurt. His next ob- 
ject was to cause the fire of the second musket to be 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 123 

thrown away in the sanrie manner. He again expo- 
sed a part of his person. The eager Indian in- 
stantly fired, and Boone evaded the shot as before. 
Both the Indians, having thrown away their fire, 
were eagerly striving, but with trembling hands, to 
reload. Trepidation and too much haste retarded 
their object. Boone drew his rifle and one of 
them fell dead. The two antagonists, now on 
equal grounds, the one unsheathing his knife, and 
the other poising his tomahawk, rushed toward the 
dead body of the fallen Indian. Boone, placing 
his foot on the dead body, dexterously received 
the well aimed tomahawk of his powerful enemy on 
the barrel of his rifle, thus preventing his skull from 
being cloven by it. In the very attitude of firing 
the Indian had exposed his body to the knife of 
Boone, who plunged it in his body to the hilt. 
This is the achievement commemorated in sculpture 
over the southern door of the Rotunda in the Capi- 
tol at Washington. 

This adventure did not deter him from exposing 
himself in a similar way again. He was once more 
hunting for the salt makers, when, on the seventh 
day of February following, he came in view of a 
body of one hundred and two Indians, evidently on 
their march to the assault of Boonesborough — that 
being a particular mark for Indian revenge. They 
were in want of a prisoner, from whom to obtain 
intelligence, and Boone was the person of all oth- 
ers, whom they desired. He fled; but among so 
many warriors, it proved, that some were swifter of 



124 LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 

foot than himself, and these overtook him and made 
him prisoner. 

By a tedious and circuitous march they hrought 
him back to the Blue Licks, and took their meas- 
ures with so much caution, as to make twenty-seven 
of the thirty salt makers prisoners. Boone obtain- 
ed for them a capitulation, which stipulated, that 
their lives should be spared, and that they should 
be kindly treated. The fortunate three, that esca- 
ped, had just been sent home with the salt that had 
been made during their ill-fated expedition. 

The Indians were faithful to the stipulations of 
the capitulation; and treated their prisoners with 
as much kindness both on their way, and after 
their arrival at Chillicothe, as their habits and 
means would admit. The march was rapid and fa 
tiguing, occupying three days of weather unusually 
cold and inclement. 

The captivity of twenty-eight of the select and 
bravest of the Kentucky settlers, without the hope 
of liberation or exchange, was a severe blow to 
the infant settlement. Had the Indians, after this 
achievement, immediately marched against Boones- 
borough, so materially diminished in its means oi 
defence, they might either have taken the place by 
surprise, or, availing themselves of the influence 
which the possession of these prisoners gave them 
over the fears and affections of the inmates, might 
have procured a capitulation of the fort. Follow- 
ing up this plan in progression, the weaker station 
would have followed the example of Boonesbo- 
rough; since it is hardly supposable, that the uni- 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 



1^ 



ted influence of fear, example, and the menace of 
the massacre of so many prisoners would not have 
procured the surrender of all the rest. But, though 
on various occasions they manifested the keenest 
observation, and the acutest quickness of instirx- 
tive cunning — though their plans were generally 
predicated on the soundest reason, they showed in 
this, and in all cases, a want of the combination of 
thought, and the abstract and extended views of 
the whites on such occasions. For a single effort, 
nothing could be imagined wiser than their views. 
For a combination made up of a number of ele- 
ments of calculation, they had no reasoning powers 
at all. 

Owing to this want of capacity for combined op- 
erations of thought, and their habitual intoxication 
of excitement, on the issue of carrying some impor- 
tant enterprise without loss, they hurried home with 
their prisoners, leaving the voice of lamentation and 
the sentiment of extreme dejection among the be- 
reaved inmates of Boonesborough. 

Throwing all the recorded incidents and circum- 
stances of the life of Boone, during his captivity 
among them, together, we shall reserve them for an- 
other place, and proceed here to record what befell 
him among the whites. 

He resided as a captive among the Indiars until 
the following March. At that time, he, and ten of 
the persons who were taken with him at the Blue 
Licks, were conducted by forty Indians to Detroit, 
where the party arrived on the thirteenth of the 
month. The ten men were put into the hands of 

11* 



136 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 



Governor Hamilton, who, to his infinite credit, 
treated them with kindness. For each of these 
thej received a moderate ransom. Such was their 
respect, and even affection for the hunter of Ken 
tucky, and such, perhaps, their estimate of his ca- 
pability of annoying them, that although Governor 
Hamilton offered them the large sum of a hundred 
pounds sterling for his ransom, they utterly refused 
to part with him. It may easily be imagined, in 
what a vexatious predicament this circumstance 
placed him; a circumstance so much the more em- 
barrassing, as he could not express his. solicitude for 
deliverance, without alarming the jealousy and ill 
feeling of the Indians. Struck with his appear- 
ance and development of character, several Eng- 
lish gentlemen, generously impressed with a sense 
of his painful position, offered him a sum of money 
adequate to the supply of his necessities. Unwil- 
ling to accept such favors from the enemies of his 
country, he refused their kindness, alleging a motive 
at once conciliating and magnanimous, that it would 
probably never be in his power to repay them. It 
will be necessary to contemplate his desolate and 
forlorn condition, haggard, and without any adequate 
clothing in that inclement climate, destitute of money 
or means, and at the same time to realize that these 
men, who so generously offered him money, were m 
league with those that were waging war against the 
United States, fully to appreciate the patriotism and 
magnanimity of this refusal. It is very probable, 
too, that these men acted from the interested motive 
of wishing to bind the hands of this stern border 



LITE OP DANIEL BOONE. 127 

warrior from any further annoyance to them and 
their red alUes, by motives of gratitude and a sense 
of obligation. 

It must have been mortifying to his spirit to leave 
his captive associates in comfortable habitations and 
among a civilized people at Detroit, while he, the 
single white man of the company, was obliged to 
accompany his red masters through the forest in a 
long and painful journey of fifteen days, at the close 
of which he found himself again at Old Chillicothe, 
as the town was called. 

This town was inhabited by the Shawnese, and 
Boone was placed in a most severe school, in which 
to learn Indian modes and ceremonies, by being him- 
self the subject of them. On the return of the party 
that led him to their home, he learned that some 
superstitious scruple induced them to halt at mid-day 
when near their village, in order to solemnize their 
return by entering their town in the evening. A 
runner was despatched from their halting place to 
mstruct the chief and the village touching the mate- 
rial incidents of their expedition. 

Before the expedition made the triumphal entry 
into their village, they clad their white prisoner in a 
new dress, of material and fashion like theirs. They 
proceeded to shave his head and skewer his hair after 
their own fashion, and then rouged him w^ith a plen- 
tiful smearing of vermilion and put into his hand a 
white staff, gorgeously tasselated with the tails of 
deer. The war-captain or leader of the expedition 
gave as many yells as they had taken prisoners ar.d 
scalps. This operated as effectually as ringing a 



128 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

tocsin, to assemble the whole village round the camp. 
As soon as the warriors from the village appeared, 
four young warriors from the camp, the two first car- 
rying each a calumet, approached the prisoner, chan- 
ting a song as they went, and taking him by the arm, 
led him in triumph to the cabin, where he was to 
remain until the announcement of his doom. The 
resident in this cabin, by their immemorial usage, 
had the power of determining his fate, whether to 
be tortured and burnt at the stake, ofadopted into 
the tribe. 

The present occupant of the cabin happened to be 
a woman, who had lost a son during the war. It is 
very probable that she was favorably impressed to- 
wards him by noting his fine person, and his firm 
and cheerful visage — circumstances which impress 
the women of the red people still more strongly than 
the men. She contemplated him stedfastly for some 
time, and sympathy and humanity triumphed, and she 
declared that she adopted him in place of the son she 
had lost. The two young meg, who bore the calu- 
met, instantly unpinioned his hands, treating him 
with kindness and respect. Food was brought him, 
and he was informed that he was considered as a son, 
^nd she, who had adopted him, as his mother. He 
was soon made aware, by demonstrations that could 
not be dissembled or mistaken,'*that he was actually 
loved, and trusted, as if he really were, what his 
adoption purported to make him. In a few days he 
suffered no other penalty of captivity than inability 
to return to his family. He was sufficiently instruc- 
ted in Indian customs to know well, that any discov- 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. W9 

ered purpose or attempt to escape would be punished 
with instant death. 

Strange caprice of inscrutable instincts and re- 
sults of habit! A circumstance, apparently fortui- 
tous and accidental, placed him in the midst of an 
Indian family, the female owner of which loved 
him with the most disinterested tenderness, and lav- 
ished upon him all the affectionate sentiments of a 
mother towards a son. Had the die of his lot been 
cast otherwise, all the inhabitants of the village 
would have raised the death song, and each indi- 
vidual would have been as fiercely unfeeling to tor- 
ment him, as they were now covetous to show him 
kindness. It is astonishing to see, in their habits of 
this sort, no interval between friendship and kind- 
ness, and the most ingenious and unrelenting bar- 
barity. Placed between two posts, and his arms 
and feet extended between them, nearly in the form 
of a person sirring crucifixion, he would have been 
burnt to death at a slow fire, while men, women, 
and children would have danced about him, occa- 
sionally applying torches and burning splinters to 
the most exquisitely sensible parts of the frame, pro- 
longing his torture, and exulting in it with the de- 
moniac exhilaration of gratified revenge. 

This was the most common fate of prisoners of 
war at that time. Sometimes they fastened the 
victim to a single stake, built a fire of green wood 
about him, and then raising their yell of exultation, 
marched off into the desert, leaving him to expire 
unheeded and alone. At other times .they killed 
their prisoners by amputating their limbs joint by 



130 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

joint. Others they destroyed by pouring on them» 
from time to time, streams of scalding water. Al 
other times they have been seen to hang their vic- 
tim to a sapUng tree by the hands, bending it down 
until the wretched sufferer has seen himself swinging 
up and down at the play of the breeze, his feet often 
within a foot of the ground. In a word, they seem 
to have exhausted the invention and ingenuity of all 
time and all countries in the horrid art of inflicting 
torture. 

The mention of a circumstance equally extraor- 
dinary in the Indian character, may be recorded 
here. If the sufferer in these afflictions be an In- 
dian, during the whole of his agony a strange 
rivalry passes between them which shall outdo each 
other, they inflicting, and he in enduring these tci- 
tures. Not a groan, not a sigh, not a distortion of 
countenance is allowed to escape him. He smokes, 
and looks even cheerful. He occasionally chants 
a strain of his war song. He vaunts his exploits 
performed in afflicting death and desolation in their 
villages. He enumerates the names of their rela 
tives and friends that he has slain. He menaces 
them with the terrible revenge that his friends will 
inflict by way of retaliation. He even derides their 
ignorance in the art of tormenting; assures them 
that he had afflicted much more ingenious torture 
upon their people; and indicates more excruciating 
modes of inflicting pain, and more sensitive parts of 
the frame to which to apply them. 

They are exceedingly dexterous in the horrid sur 
gical operation of taking off the scalp — that is, a 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 131 

considerable surface of the hairy integument of the 
crown of the cranium. Terrible as the operation 
is, there are not wanting great numbers of cases of 
persons who have survived, and recovered from it. 
The scalps of enemies thus taken, even when not 
paid for, as has been too often the infamous custom 
of their white auxiliaries, claiming to be civilized, 
are valued as badges of family honor, and trophies 
of the bravery of the warrior. On certain days and 
occasions, young warriors take a new name, consti- 
tuting a new claim to honor, according to the num- 
ber of scalps they have taken, or the bravery and 
exploits of those from whom they were taken. This 
name they deem a sufficient compensation for every 
fatigue and danger. Another ludicrous superstition 
tends to inspire them with the most heroic senti- 
ments. They believe that all the fame, intelligence, 
and bravery that appertained to the enemy they 
have slain is transferred to them, and thencefor- 
ward becomes their intellectual property. Hence, 
they are excited with the most earnest appetite to 
kill warriors of distinguished fame. This article of 
Indian faith affords an apt illustration of the ordina- 
ry influence of envy, which seems to inspire the 
person whom it torments with the persuasion, that 
all the merit it can contract from the envied becomes 
its own, and that the laurels shorn from another's 
brow will sprout on its own. 

He witnessed also their modes of hardening their 
children to that prodigious power of unshrinking 
endurance, of which such astonishing effects have 
just been recorded. This may be fitly termed ihe 



132 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

Indian system of gynnnastics. The bodies of the 
children of both sexes are inured to hardships bj 
compeUing them to endure prolonged fastings, and to 
bathe in the coldest water. A child of eight years, 
fasts half a day; and one of twelve, a whole day 
without food or drink. The face is blacked during 
the fast, and is washed immediately before eating. 
The male face is entirely blacked; that of the female 
only on the cheeks. The course is discontinued in 
the case of the male at eighteen, and of the female 
at fourteen. At eighteen, the boy is instructed by his 
parents that his education is completed, and that he 
is old enough to be a man. His face is then black- 
ed for the last time, and he is removed at the dis- 
tance of some miles from the village, and placed in 
a temporary cabin. He is there addressed by his 
parent or guardian to this purport: "My son, it 
has pleased the Great Spirit that you should live to 
see this day. We all have noted your conduct 
since I first blacked your face. They well under- 
stand whether you have strictly followed the advice 
I have given you, and they will conduct themselves 
towards you according to their knowledge. YoxS 
must remain here until I, or some of your friends, 
come for you." 

The party then returns, resumes his gun, and 
seeming to forget the sufferer, goes to his hunting as 
usual, and the son or ward is left to endure hunger 
as long as it can be endured, and the party survive. 
The hunter, meanwhile, has procured the materials 
for a feast, of which the liiends are invited to par- 
take They accompany the father or guardian to 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 188 

the unfortunate starving subject. He then accom- 
panies them home, and is bathed in cold water, and 
his head shaved after tlie Indian fashion — all but a 
small space on the centre of the crown. He is then 
allowed to take food, which, however, as a conse- 
crated thing, is presented him in a vessel distinct 
from that used by the rest. After he has eaten, he 
is presented with a looking-glass, and a bag of ver- 
milion. He is then complimented for the firmness 
with which he has sustained his fasting, and is told 
that he is henceforward a man^ and to be considered 
as such. The instance is not known of a boy eat- 
ing or drinking while under this interdict of the 
blacked face. They are deterred, not only by the 
strong sentiments of Indian honor, but by a persua- 
sion that the Great Spirit would severely punish such 
disobedience of parental authority. 

The most honorable mode of marriage, and that 
generally pursued by the more distinguished war- 
riors, is to assemble the friends and relatives, and 
consult with them in regard to the person whom it 
is expedient to marry. The choice being made, the 
relations of the young man collect such presents as 
they deem proper for the occasion, go to the parents 
of the woman selected, make known the wishes of 
their friend, deposit their presents, and return with- 
out waiting for an answer. The relations of the 
girl assemble and consult on the subject. If they 
confirm the choice, they also collect presents, dress 
her in her best clothes, and take her to the friends 
of the bridegroom who made the appUcation for the 

match, when it is understood that the marriage is 
12 



134 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

cccnpleted. She herself has still a negative; and 
if she disapprove the match, the presents from the 
friends of the young man are returned, and this is 
considered as a refusal. Many of the more north- 
ern nations, as the Dacotas, for example, have a cus- 
tom, that, when the husband deceases, his widow 
immediately manifests the deepest mourning, by 
putting off all her finery, and dresses herself in 
the coarsest Indian attire, the sackcloth of Indian 
lamentation. Meanwhile she makes ap a respecta- 
ble sized bundle of her clothes into the form of a 
kind of doll-man, which represents her husband. 
With this she sleeps. To this she converses and 
relates the sorrows of her desolate heart. It would 
be indecorous for any warrior, while she is in this 
predicament, to show her any attentions of gallan- 
try. She never puts on any habihments but those 
of sadness and disfigurement. The only comfort she 
is permitted in this desolate state is, that her budget- 
ted husband is permitted, when drams are passing, 
to be considered as a living one, and she is allowed 
to cheer her depressed spirits with a double dram, 
that of her budget-husband and iier own. After a 
full year of this penance with the budget-husbandji 
she is allowed to exchange it (cv a living one, if she 
can find him. 

"When an Indian party forms for private revenge 
the object is accomplished in the followiiig manner 
The Indian who seeks revenge, proposes his project 
to obtain it to some of his more intimate assoc^ates^ 
and requests them to accompany him. When the 
. equisite number is obtained, and the plan arranged 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 135 

(t is kept a profound secret from all others, and the 
proposer of the plan is considered the leader. The 
party leaves the village secrctlj, and in the night. 
When they halt for the night, the eldest encamp in 
front, and the younger in the rear. The foremen 
hun^ for the party, and perform the duty of spies. 
The latter cook, make the tires, mend the moccasins, 
and perform the other drudgery of the expedition. 

Every war party has a small budget, called the 
war budget, which contains something belonging to 
each one of the party, generally representing some 
animal; for example, the skin of a snake, the tail of a 
buffalo, the skin of a martin, or the feathers of some 
extraordinary bird. This budget is considered a sa- 
cred deposit, and is carried by some person selected 
for the purpose, who marches in front, and leads the 
party against the enemy. When the party halts, 
the budget is deposited in front,and no person passes 
it without authority. No one, while such an exhibi- 
tion is pending, is allowed to lay his pack on a log, 
converse about women or his home. When they 
encamp, the heart of whatever beast they have killed 
on the preceding day is cut into small pieces and 
burnt. No person is allowed, while it is burning, to 
step across the fire, but must go round it, and always 
in the direction of the sun. 

When an attack is to be made, the w ar budget is 
opened, and each man takes out his budget, or totem, 
and attaches it to that part of his body which has 
been indicated by tradition from his ancestors. 
When the attack is commenced, the body of the 
fighter is painted, generally black, and is almost na- 



136 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

ked. After the action, each party returns his totem 
to the comnnander of the party, who carefully wraps 
them all up, and delivers them to the man \rho has 
taken the lirst prisoner or scalp ; and he is entitled to 
the honor of leading the party home in triumph. 
The war budget is then hung in front of the door of 
the person who carried it on the march against the 
enemy, where it remains suspended thirty or forty 
days, and some one of the party often sings and dan- 
ces round it. 

''One mode of Indian burial seems to have pre- 
vailed, not only among the Indians of the lakes and 
of the Ohio valley, but over all the western country. 
Some lay the dead body on the surface of the ground, 
make a crib or pen over it, and cover it with bark. 
Others lay the body in a grave, covering it first with 
bark, and then with earth. Others make a coffin 
out of the cloven section of trees, in the form of 
plank, and suspend it from the top of a tree. Noth 
ing can be more affecting than to see a young mother 
hanging the coffin that contains the remains of her 
beloved child to the pendent branches of the flower- 
ing maple, and singing her lament over her love and 
hope, £is it waves in the breeze. 



LIFE OF DANIFL BOONE. 



CHAPTER IX 



137 



Boone becomes a favorite among the Indians — Anecdotes relating to his 
captivity — Their mode of tormenting and burning prisoners — TheL 
fortitude under the infliction of torture— Concerted attack oa Boones- 
borough — Boone escapes. 

BooA'E, being now a son in a principal Shawnee 
family, presents himself in a new hght to our obser- 
vation. We would be glad to be able give a diur- 
nal record of his modes of deportment, and getting 
along. Unhappily, the records are few and meagre. 
It will be obvious, that the necessity for a more pro- 
found dissimulation of contentment, cheerfulness, 
and a feeling of loving his home, was stronger than 
ever. It was a semblance that must be daily and 
hourly sustained. He would never have acquitted 
himself successfully, but for a wonderful versatility, 
which enabled him to enter into the spirit of what- 
ever parts he was called upon to sustain; and a real 
love for the hunting and pursuits of the Indians, 
which rendered what was at first assumed, with a 
little practice, and the influence of habit, easy and 
natural. He soon became in semblance so thor- 
oughly one of them, and was able in all those points 
of practice wliich give them reputation, to con- 
duct himself ^ith so much sidll and adroitness, 
that he gained the entire confidence of the family 
into which he was adopted, and become £ls dear to 
his mcther of adoption as her own son. 

Trials of Indian strength and skill are among 
12* 



138 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 



their most common amusements. Boone was soon 
challenged to competition in these trials. In these 
rencounters of loud laughter and boisterous merri- 
ment, where all that was done seemed to pass into 
oblivion as fast as it transpired, Boone had too much 
tact and keen observation not to perceive that jeal- 
ousy, envy, and the origin of hatred often lay hid 
under the apparent recklessness of indifference. 
He was not sorry that some of the Indians could 
really beat him in the race, though extremely light 
of foot; and that in the game of ball, at which they 
had been practised all their lives, lie was decidedly 
inferior. But there was another sport — that of 
shooting at a mark — a new custom to the Indians 
but recently habituated to the use of fire arms; a 
practice which they had learned from the whites, 
and they were excessively jealous of reputation of 
great skill in this exercise, so important in hunting 
and war. Boone was challenged to shoot with them 
at a mark. It placed him in a most perplexing 
dilemma. If he shot his best, he could easily and 
far excel their most practised marksmen. But he 
was aware, that to display his superiority would 
never be forgiven him. On the other hand, to fall 
far short of them in an exercise which had been 
hitherto peculiar to the whites, would forfeit theif 
respect. In this predicament, he judiciously allowed 
himself sometimes to be beaten; and when it became 
prudent to put forth all his skill, a well dissembled 
humility and carelessness subdued the mortification 
and envy of the defeated competitor. 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 139 

He was often permitted to accompany them in 
their hunting parties; and here their habits and his 
circumstances ahke invoked him to do his best. 
They applauded his skill and success as a hunter, 
with no mixture of envy or ill will. He was par- 
ticularly fortunate in conciliating the good will of 
the Shawnee chief. To attain this result, Boone 
not only often presented him with a share of his 
game, but adopted the more winning deportment of 
always affecting to treat his opinions and counsels 
with deference. The chief, on his part, often took 
occasion to speak of Boone as a most consummate 
proficient in hunting, and a warrior of great brave- 
ry. Not long after kis residence among them, he 
had occasion to witness their manner of celebrating 
their victories, by being an eye witness to one which 
commemorated the successful return of a war party 
with some scalps. 

Witliin a day's march of the village, the party 
dispatched a runner \vith the joyful intelligence of 
their success, achieved without loss. Every cabin 
in the village was immediately ordered to be swept 
perfectly clean, with the religious intention to ban- 
ish every source of pollution that might mar the 
ceremony. The women, exceedingly fearful of con- 
tributing in any way to this pollution, commenced 
an inveterate sweeping, gathering up the collected 
dirt, and carefully placing it in a heap behind the 
door. There it remained until the medicine man, 
or priest, who presides over the powow, ordered 
them to remove it, and at the same time every sav- 
gfi implement and utensil upon whiih the women 



140 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

had laid their hands during the absence of the 
expedition. 

Next day the party came in sight of the village, 
painted in alternate compartments of red and black, 
their heads enveloped in swan's down, and the cen- 
tre of their crown, surmounted with long white 
feathers. They advanced, singing their war song, 
and bearing the scalps on a verdant branch of 
evergreen. 

Arrived at the village, the chief who had led 
the party advanced before his warriors to his 
winter cabin, encircling it in an order of march 
contrary to the course of the sun, singing the war 
song after a particular mode, sometimes on the ten 
or and sometimes on the bass key, sometimes in 
high and shrill, and sometimes in deep and guttural 
notes. The waiter^ or servant of the leader, called 
Etissu, placed a couple of blocks of wood near the 
war-pole, opposite the door of a circular cabin, 
called the hot-house,, in the centre of which was the 
council fire. On these blocks he rested a kind 
of ark, deemed among their most sacred things. 
While this was transacting the party were pro- 
foundly silent. The chief bade all set down, and 
then inquired whether his cabin was prepared and 
every thing unpolluted, according to the custom of 
their fathers? After the answer, they rose up in 
concert and began the war-whoop, walking slowly 
round the war-pole as they sung. All the conse- 
crated things were then carried, with no small show 
of solemnity, into the hot-house. Here they remain- 
ed three whole days and nights, in separation from 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 141 

the rest of the people, applying warm ablations to 
their bodies, and sprinkling themselves with a de- 
coction of snake root. During a part of the time, 
the female relations of each of the consecrated 
company, after having bathed, anointed, and drest 
themselves in their fnicst apparel, stood, in two 
lines opposite the door, and facing each other. 
This observance they kept up through the night, 
uttering a peculiar, monotonous song, in a shrill 
voice for a minute; then intermitting it about ten 
minutes, and resuming it again. When not singing 
their silence was profound. 

The chief, meanwhile, at intervals of about three 
hours, came out at the head of his company, raised 
the war-whoop, and marched round the red war-pole, 
holding in his right hand the pine or cedar boughs, 
on which the scalps were attached, waving them 
backward and forward, and then returned again. To 
these ceremonies they conformed without the slight- 
est interruption, during tiie whole three days' puri- 
fication. To proceed with the whole details of the 
ceremony to its close, would be tedious. We close 
it, only adding, that a small twig of the evergreen 
was fixed upon the roof of each one of their cabins, 
with a fragment of the scalps attached to it, and 
this, as it appeared, to appease the ghosts of their 
dead. When Boone asked them the meaning of all 
these long and tedious ceremonies, they answered 
him by a word which literally imports "holy." The 
leader and his waiter kept apart and continued the 
purification three days longer, and the ceremony 
closed. 



142 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

He observed, that when their war-parties retun>ed 
from an expedition, and had arrived near their vil- 
lage, they followed their file leader, in what is called 
Indian jile^ one by one, each a few yards behind the 
other, to give the procession an appearance of great- 
er length and dignity. If the expedition had been 
unsuccessful, and they had lost any of their warriors, 
they returned without ceremony and in noiseless 
sadness. But if they had been successful, they fired 
their guns in platoons, yelling, whooping, and insul- 
ting their j^risoners, if they had made any. Near 
their town was a large square area, with a war-pole 
in the ceiitre, expressly prepared for such purposes. 
To this they fasten tlieir prisoners. They then ad- 
vance to the house of their leader, remaining with- 
out, and standing round his red war-pole, until they 
determine concerning the fate of their prisoner. If 
any prisoner should be fortunate enough to break 
from his pinions, and escape into the house of the 
chief medicine man, or conductor of the powow, it 
is an inviolable asylum, and by immemorial usage, 
the refugee is saved from the fire. 

Captives far advanced in life, or such as had been 
known to have shed the blood of their tribe, were 
sure to atone for their decrepitude, or past activity 
in shedding blood, by being burnt to death. They 
readily know those Indians who have killed many, 
by the blue marks on their breasts and arms, which 
indicate the number they have slain. These hiero- 
glyphics are to them as significant as our alphabetical 
characters. The ink with which these characters 
are impressed, is a sort of lampblack, prepared from 



LIFE or DANIEL BOONE. 143 

the soot of burning pine, which they catch by caus- 
ing it to pass through a sort of greased funnel. Hav- 
ing prepared this lampblack, they tattoo it into the 
skin, by punctures made with thorns or the teeth of 
fish. The young prisoners, if they seen capable of 
activity and service, and if they preserve an intrepid 
and unmoved countenance, are generally spared, 
unless condemned to death by the party, while un- 
dergoing the purification specified above. As soon 
as their case is^so decided, they are tied to the stake, 
one at a time. A pair of bear-skin moccasins, with 
the hair outwards, are put on their feet. They are 
stripped naked to the loins, and are pinioned firmly 
to the stake. 

Their subsequent punishment, in addition to the 
Buffering of slow fire, is left to the women. Such are 
the influences of their training, that although the 
female nature, in all races of men, is generally found 
to be more susceptible of pity than the male, in this 
case they appear to surpass the men in the fury of 
their merciless rage, and the industrious ingenuity 
of their torments. Each is prepared with a bundle 
of long, dry, reed cane, or other poles, to which are 
attached spUnters of burning pine. As the victim 
is led to the stake, the women and children begin 
their sufferings by beating them with switches and 
clubs; and as they reel and recoil from the blows, 
these fiendish imps show their gratification by unre- 
mitting peals of laughter; too happy, if their tortures 
ended here, or if the merciful tomahawk brought 
them to an immediate close. 

The signal for a more terrible infliction being giv 



J41 LIFE ©F DANIEL BOONE. 

en — the arms of the victim are pinioned, and he is 
disengaged from the pole, and a grapevine passed 
round his neck, allowing him a circle of ahout fifteen 
yards in circumference, in which he can be made to 
march round his pole. They knead tough clay on 
his head to secure the cranium from the effects of the 
blaze, that it may not inflict immediate death. Un- 
der the excitement of ineifable and horrid joy, thev 
whip him round the circle, that he may expose each 
part of his body to the flame, while the other part is 
fanned by the cool air, that he may thus undergo the 
literal operation of slow roasting. During this ab 
horrent process, the children fill the circle in convul- 
sions of laughter; and the women begin to thrust 
their burning torches into his body, lacerating the 
quick of the fiesh, that the flame miiy inflict more 
exquisite anguish. The warrior, in these cases, 
goaded to fury, sweeps round the extent of his circle, 
kicking, biting, and stamping with inconceivable fu- 
ry. The throng of women and children laugh, and 
fly from the circle, and fresh tormentors fill it again. 
At other times the humor takes him to show them, 
that he can bear all this, without a grimace, a spasm, 
or indication ofsutFering. In this case, as we have 
seen, he smokes, derides, menaces, sings, and shows 
his contempt, by calling them by the most reproach- 
ful of all epithets — old women. When he falls in- 
sensible, they scalp and dismember him, and the re- 
mainder of his body is consumed. 

We have omitted many of these revolting details, 
many of the atrocious features of this spectacle, as 
witnessed by Boone. While we read with indigna^ 



LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 145 

tion and horror, let us not forget that savages have 
not alone inflicted these detestable cruelties. Let 
us not forget that the professed followers of Jesus 
Christ have given examples of a barbarity equally 
unrelenting and horrible, in the form of leligious 
persecution, and avowedly to glorify God. 

During Boone's captivity among the Shawnese, 
they took prisoner a noted warrior of a western 
tribe, with which they were then at war. He was 
condemned to the stake with the usual solemnities. 
Having endured the preliminary tortures with the 
most fearless unconcern, he told them, when prepa- 
ring to commence a new series, with a counte- 
nance of scorn, he could teach them how to make 
an enemy eat fire to some purpose; and begged that 
they would give him an opportunity, together with 
a pipe and tobacco. In respectful astonishment, 
at an unwonted demonstration of invincible endu- 
rance, they granted his request. He lighted his 
pipe, began to smoke, and sat down, all naked as 
he was, upon the burning torches, which were bla- 
zing within his circle. Every muscle of his coun- 
tenance retained its composure. On viewing this, 
a noted warrior sprang up, exclaiming, that this 
was a true warrior; that though his nation was 
treacherous, and he had caused them many deaths, 
yet such was their respect for true courage, that if 
the fire had not already spoiled him, he should be 
spared. That being now impossible, he promised 
him the merciful release of the tomahawk. He 
then held the terrible instrument suspended some 
moments over his head, during all which time he 
13 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 147 

was seen neither to change his posture, mo\e a 
muscle, or his countenance to blench. The toma- 
hawk fell, and the impassable warrior ceased to 
suffer. 

We shall close these details of the Shawnese cus- 
toms, at the time when Boone was prisoner among 
them, by giving his account of their ceremonies at 
making peace. The chief warriors, who arrange 
the conditions of the peace and subsequent friend- 
ship, first mutually eat and smoke together. They 
then pledge each other in the sacred drink called 
Cussena, The Shawnese then wave large fans of 
eagles' tails, and conclude with a dance. The 
stranger warriors, who have come to receive the 
peace, select half a dozen of their most active 
young men, surmounting their crowns with swan's 
feathers, and painting their bodies with white clay. 
They then place their file leader on the consecrated 
seat of what imports in their language, the "beloved 
cabin." Afterwards they commence singing the 
peace song, with an air of great solemnity. They 
begin to dance, first in a prone or bowing posture. 
They then raise themselves erect, look upwards, and 
wave their eagles' tails towards the sky, first with a 
slow, and then with a quick and jerky motion. At 
the same time, they strike their breast with a cala- 
bash fastened to a stick about a foot in length, 
which they hold in their left hand, while they wave 
the eagles' feathers with the right, and keep time 
by rattling pebbles in a gourd. These ceiemo- 
nies of peace-making they consider among their 
•nost solemn duties; and to be perfectly accom- 



148 LIFE OF DA.NIEL BOONE. 

plished in all the notes and gestures is an indispen- 
sable acquirement to a thorough trained warrior. 

Boone has related, at different times, many oral 
details of his private and domestic life, and his 
modes of getting along in the family, of which he 
was considered a member. He was perfectly 
trained to their ways, could prepare their food, 
and perform any of their common domestic opera- 
tions with the best of them. He often accompa- 
nied them in their hunting excursions, wandering 
with them over the extent of forest between Chilli- 
cothe and lake Erie. These conversations present- 
ed curious and most vivid pictures of their interior 
modes; their tasks of diurnal labor and supply; 
their long and severe fasts; their gluttonous indul- 
gence, when they had food; and their reckless gen- 
erosity and hospitality, when they had any thing to 
bestow to travelling visitants. 

To become, during this tedious captivity, per- 
fectly acquainted with their most interior domestic 
and diurnal manners, was not without interest for a 
mind constituted like his. To make himself master 
of their language, and to become familiarly ac- 
quainted with their customs, he considered acquisi- 
tions of the highest utility in the future operations, 
in which, notwithstanding his present duress, he 
hoped yet to be beneficial to his beloved settlement 
of Kentucky. 

Although the indulgence with which he was 
treated in the family, in which he was adopted, 
and these acquisitions, uniting interest with utility, 
tended to beguile the time of his captivity, it cannot 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 14^ 

be doubted, that his sleeping and waking thoughts 
were incessantly occupied with the chances of ma- 
king his escape. An expedition was in contempla- 
tion, by the tribe, to the salt licks on the Scioto, 
to make salt. Boone dissembled indifference whe- 
ther they took him with them, or left him behind, 
with so much success, that, to his extreme joy, they 
determined that he should accompany them. The 
expedition started on the first day of June, 1778, 
and was occupied ten days in making salt. 

During this expedition, he was frequently sent 
out to hunt, to furnish provisions for the party; but 
always under such circumstances, that, much as he 
had hoped to escape on this expedition, no opportu- 
nity occurred, which he thought it prudent to em- 
brace. He returned with the party to Chillicothe, 
having derived only one advantage from the jour 
ney, that of furnishing, by his making no attempt 
to escape, and by his apparently cheerful return, 
new motives to convince the Indians, that he was 
thoroughly domesticated among them, and had 
voluntarily renounced his own race; a persuasion, 
which, by taking as much apparent interest as any 
of them, in all their diurnal movements and plans, 
he constantly labored to establish. 

Soon after his return he attended a warrior-coun 

eil, at which, in virtue of being a member of one of 

the principal families, he had a right of usage and 

prescription, to be present. It was composed of a 

hundred and fifty of their bravest men, all painted 

and armed for an expedition, which he found 'vas 

intended against Boonesborough. It instantly te- 
la* 



150 lilFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

curred to him, as a most fortunate circumstance, 
that he had not escaped on the expedition to Scio- 
to. Higher and more imperious motives, than 
merely personal considerations, now determined 
him at every risk to make the effort to escape, and 
prepare, if he might reach it, the station for a vigor- 
ous defence, by forewarning it of what was in prepa 
ration among the Indians. 

The religious ceremonies of the council and pre- 
paration for the expedition were as follow. One of 
the principal war chiefs announced the intention of 
a party to commence an expedition against Boones- 
borough. This he did by beating their drum, and 
marching with their war standard three times round 
the council-house. On this the council dissolved, 
and a sufficient number of warriors supplied them- 
selves with arms, and a quantity of parched corn 
flour, as a supply of food for the expedition. All 
who had volunteered to join in it, then adjourned 
to their "winter house," and drank the war-drink, 
a decoction of bitter herbs and roots, for three days 
— preserving in other respects an almost unbroken 
fast. This is considered to be an act tending to pro- 
pitiate the Great Spirit to prosper their expedition. 
During this period of purifying themselves, they 
were not allowed to sit down, or even lean upon a 
tree, however fatigued, until after sun-set. If a bear 
or deer even passed in sight, custom forbade them 
from killing it for refreshment. The more rigidly 
punctual they are in the observance of these rights, 
the more confidently they expect success. 

While the young warriors were under this proba- 



LIFE OF 1>ANIEL BOONE. 15| 

tion, the aged ones, experienced in the usages of 
their ancestors, watched them most narrowly to see 
that, from irrehgion, or hunger, or recklessness, they 
did not violate any of the transmitted religious rites, 
and thus bring the wrath of the Great Spirit upon 
the expedition. Boone himself, as a person natu- 
rally under suspicion of having a swerving of incli- 
nation towards the station to be assailed, was obliged 
to observe the fast with the most rigorous exactness. 
During the three days' process of purification, he 
was not once allowed to go out of the medicine oi 
sanctified ground, without a trusty guard, lest hun- 
ger or indifference to their laws should tempt him to 
violate them. 

When the fast and purification was complete, 
they were compelled to set forth, prepared or unpre- 
pared, be the weather fair or foul. Accordingly, 
when the time arrived, they fired their guns, whoop- 
ed, and danced, and sung — and continued firing 
their guns before them on the commencement of their 
route. The leading war-chief marched first, carry- 
ing their medicine bag, or budget of holy things. 
The rest followed in Indian file, at intervals of three 
or four paces behind each other, now and then 
chiming the war-whoop in concert. 

They advanced in this order until they were out 
of sight and hearing of the village. As soon as thej 
reached the deep woods, all became as silent as 
death. This silence they inculcate, that their ears 
may be quick to catch the least portent of danger. 

Every one acquainted with the race, has remarked 
their intense keenness of vision. Their eyes, foj 



i52 LITE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

acuteness, and capability of discerning distant ob- 
jects, resemble those of the eagle or the lynx; and 
their cat-like tread among the grass and leaves, 
seems so light as scarcely to shake off the dew drops. 
Thus they advance on their expedition rapidly and 
in profound silence, unless some one of the party 
should relate that he has had an unpropitious dream 
When this happens, an immediate arrest is put upon 
the expedition, and the whole party face about, and 
return without any sense of shame or mortification. 
A whole party is thus often arrested by a single per- 
son; and their return is applauded by the tribe, as a 
respectful docility to the divine impulse, as they deem 
it, from the Great Spirit. These dreams are univer- 
sally reverenced, as the warnings of the guardian 
spirits of the tribe. There is in that country a 
sparrow, of an uncommon species, and not often 
seen. This bird is called in the Shawnese dialect by 
a name importing "kind messenger," which they 
deem always a true omen, whenever it appears, of 
bad news. They are exceedingly intimidated 
whenever this bird sings near them; and were it to 
perch and sing over their war-camp, the whole par- 
ty would instantly disperse in consternation and 
dismay. 

Every chief has his warrior, Etissu, or waiter, to 
attend on him and his party. This confidential per- 
sonage has charge of every thing that is eaten or 
drank during the expedition. He parcels it out by 
rules of rigid abstemiousness. Though each war 
rior carries on his back all his travelling conveniences, 
and his food among the rest, yet, however keen tlw 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. i5S 

appetite sharpened by hunger, however burning the 
thirst, no one dares reheve his hunger or thirst, until 
his rations are dispensed to him by the Etissu. 

Boone had occasion to have all these lites most 
painfully impressed on his memory; for he was obli- 
ged to conform to them with the rest. One single 
thought occupied his mind — to seize the right occa- 
sion to escape. 

It was sometime before it offered. At length a 
deer came in sight. He had a portion of his unfin- 
ished breakfast in his hand. He expressed a desire 
to pursue the deer. The party consented. As soon 
as he was out of sight, he instantly turned his course 
towards Boonesborough. Aware that he should be 
pursued by enemies as keen on the scent as blood- 
hounds, he put forth his whole amount of backwoods 
skill, in doubling in his track, walking in the water, 
and availing himself of every imaginable expedient 
to throw them off his trail. His unfinished fragment 
of his breakfast was his only food, except roots and 
berries, during this escape for his Hfe, through un- 
known forests and pathless swamps, and across nu- 
merous rivers, spreading in an extent of more than 
two hundred miles. Every forest sound must have 
struck his ear, as a harbinger of the approaching 
Indians. 

No spirit but such an one as his, could have sus- 
tained the apprehension and fatigue. No mind but 
one guided by the intuition of instinctive sagacity, 
could have so enabled him to conceal his trail, and 
find his way. But he evaded their pursuit. He 
discovered his way. He found in roots, in barks, 



J 54 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

and berries, together with v/hat a single shot of his 
rifle afforded, wherewith to sustain the cravings of 
nature. TravelHng night and day, in an incredible 
short space of time he was in the arms of his friends 
at Boonesborough, experiencing a reception, after 
such a long and hopeless absence, as words would in 
vain attempt to portray. 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOO^E. 155 



CHAPTER X. 

Six hundred Indians attack Boonesboioiigli — Boone and Captain 
Smith go out to treat witli the enemy under a flag of truce, and 
are extricated from a treacherous attempt to detain them as pri- 
soners — Defence of the foit — The Indvans defeated — Boone goes 
to North Carolina to bring biirk his family. 

It will naturally be supposed that foes less warj 
and intelligent, than thor-e from whonn Boone had 
escaped, after they had abandoned the hope of 
recapturing him, would calculate to find Boonesbo- 
rough in readiness for their reception. 

Boones])orough, though the most populous and 
important station in Kentucky, had been left by the 
abstraction of so many of the select inhabitants in 
the captivity of the Blue Licks, by the absence of 
Colonel Clarke in Illinois, and by the actual decay 
of the pickets, almost defenceless. Not long before 
the return of Boone, this important post had been 
put under the care of Major Smith, an active and 
intelligent officer. He repaired thither, and put 
the station, with great labor and fatigue, in a com- 
petent fetate of defence. liCarning from the re 
turn of some of the prisoners, captured at the 
Blue Licks, the great blow which the Shawnese 
meditated against this station, he deemed it advisa- 
ble to anticipate their movements, and to fit out an 
expedition to meet them on their own ground. — 
Leaving twenty young men to defend the place, he 



156 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

marched with thirty chosen men towards the Shaw 
nese towns. 

At the Blue Licks, a place of evil omen to Kei. 
tucky, eleven of the men, anxious for the safety of 
the families they had left behind, and deeming theii 
force too small for the object contemplated, aban 
doned the enterprise and retreated to the fort. The 
remaining iiineteen, not discouraged by the deser 
tion of their companions, heroically persevered 
They crossed the Ohio to the present site of Cincin- 
nati, on rafts. They then painted their faces, and 
in other respects assumed the guise and garb of 
savages, and marched upon the Indian towns. 

Wlien arrived within twenty miles of these towns 
they met the force with which Boone had set out. 
Discouraged by his escape, the original party had 
returned, had been rejoined by a considerable rein- 
forcement, the whole amounting to two hundred and 
fifty men on horse-back, and were again on their 
march against Boonesborough. Fortunately, Majoi 
Smith and his small party discovered this formidable 
body before they were themselves observed. Bui 
instead of endeavoring to make good their retreat 
from an enemy so superior in numbers, and mounted 
upon horses, they fired upon them and killed two of 
their number. An assault so unexpected alarmed 
the Indians; and without any effort to ascertain 
the number of their assailants, they commenced 
a precipitate retreat. If these rash adventurers 
had stopped here, they might have escaped unmo 
lested. But, flushed with this partial success, they 
rushed upon the retreating foe, and repeated theii 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 157 

fire. The savages, restored to self-possession, halted 
in their turn, deliberated a moment, and turned upon 
the assailants. Major Smith, perceiving the impru- 
dence of having thus put the enemy at bay, and 
the certainty of the destruction c^ his little force, 
if the Indians should perceive its weakness, ordered 
a retreat in time; and being considerably in ad- 
vance of the foe, succeeded in effecting it without 
loss. By a rapid march during the night, in the 
course of the next morning they reached Boones- 
borough in safety. 

Scarcely an hour after the last of their number 
had entered the fort, a body of six hundred Indians, 
in three divisions of two hundred each, appeared 
with standards and much show of warlike array, 
and took their station opposite the fort. The whole 
was commanded by a Frenchman named Duquesne. 
They immediately sent a flag requesting the sur- 
render of the place, in the name of the king of 
Great Britain. A council was held, and contrary 
to the opinion of Major Smith, it was decided to 
pay no attention to the proposal. They repeated 
their flag of truce, stating that they had letters from 
the commander at Detroit to Colonel Boone. On 
this, it was resolved that Colonel Boone and Major 
Smith should venture out, and hear what they had 
to propose. 

Fifty yards from the fort three chiefs met them 

with great parade, and conducted them to the spot 

designated for their reception, and spread a panther's 

skin for their seat, while two other Indians held 

branches over their heads to protect them from the 
14 



158 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

fervor of the sun. The chiefs then connmenced an 
address five minutes in length, abounding in friendly 
assurances, and the avowal of kind sentiments. A 
part of the advanced warriors grounded their arms, 
and came forward to shake hands with them. 

The letter from Governor Hamilton of Detroit was 
then produced, and read. It proposed the most fa- 
vorable terms of surrender, provided the garrison 
would repair to Detroit. Major Smith assured them 
that the proposition seemed a kind one; but that it 
was impossible, in their circumstances, to remove 
their women and children to Detroit. The reply 
was that this difficulty should be removed, for that 
they had brought forty horses with them, expressly 
prepared for such a contingency. 

In a long and apparently amicable interview, du- 
ring which the Indians smoked with them, and 
vaunted their abstinence in not having killed the 
swine and cattle of the settlement, Boone and Smith 
arose to return to the fort, and make known these 
proposals, and to dehberate upon their decision. 
Twenty Indians accompanied their return as far as 
the limits stipulated between the parties allowed. 
The negotiators having returned, and satisfied the 
garrison that the Indians had no cannon, advised 
to listen to no terms, but to defend the fort to the 
last extremity. The inmates of the station resolved 
to follow this counsel. 

In a short time the Indians sent in another flag, 
with a view, as they stated, to ascertain the result 
of the deliberations of the fort. Word was sent 
them, that if they wished to settle a treaty, a place 



LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 159 

of conference must be assigned intermediate be- 
tween their camp and the fort. The Indians con- 
sented to this stipulation, and deputed thirty chiefs 
to arrange the articles, though such appeared to be 
their distrust, that they could not be induced to 
come nearer than eighty yards from the fort. Smith 
and Boone with four others were deputed to confer 
with them. After a close conference of two days, 
an arrangement was agreed upon, which contained 
a stipulation, that neither party should cross the 
Ohio, until after the terms had been decided upon 
by the respective authorities on either side. The 
wary heads of this negotiation considered these 
terms of the Indians as mere lures to beguile con- 
fidence. 

When the treaty was at kist ready for signature, 
an aged chief, who had seemed to regulate all the 
proceedings, remarked that he must first go to his 
people, and that he would immediately return, and 
sign the instrument. He was observed to step aside 
in conference v/ith some young warriors. On his 
return the negotiators from the garrison asked the 
chief why he had brought young men in place of 
those who had just been assisting at the council? 
His answer was prompt and ingenious. It was, that 
he wished to gratify his young warriors, who desired 
to become acquainted with the ways of the whites. 
It was then proposed, according to the custom of 
both races, that the parties should shake hands. As 
the two chief negotiators. Smith and Boone, arose 
to depart, they were both seized from behind. 

Suspicious of treachery, they had posted twenty- 



160 LITE OP DANIEL BOONE. 

five men in a bastion, with orders to tire upon the 
council, as soon as they should see any marks of 
treachery or violence. The instant the negotiators 
were seized, the whole besieging force tired upon 
them, and the fire was as promptly returned by the 
men in the bastion. The powerful savages who 
had grasped Boone and Smith, attempted to drag 
them ofi' as prisoners. The one who held Smith 
was compelled to release his grasp by being shot 
dead. Colonel Boone was slightly wounded. A 
second tomahawk, by which his skull would have 
been cleft asunder, he evaded, and it partially fell 
on Major Smith; but being in a measure spent, it 
did not inflict a dangerous wound. The negotiators 
escaped to the fort without receiving any other in- 
jury. The almost providential escape of Boone and 
Smith can only be accounted for by the confusion 
into which the Indians were thrown, as soon as these 
men were seized, and by the prompt fire of the men 
concealed in the bastion. Added to this, the two 
Indians who seized them were both shot dead, by 
marksmen who knew how to kill the Indians, and 
at the same time spare the whites, in whose grasp 
they were held. 

The firing on both sides now commenced in ear- 
nest, and was kept up without intermission from 
morning dawn until dark. The garrison, at once 
exasperated and cheered by the meditated treachery 
of the negotiation and its result, derided the furious 
Indians, and thanked them for the stratagem of the 
negotiation, which had given them time to prepare 
the fort for their reception. Goaded to desperation 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 161 

by these taunts, and by Duquesne, who harangued 
them to the onset, thej often rushed up to the fort, 
as if they purposed to storm it. Dropping dead un- 
der the cool and dehberate aim of the besieged, the 
remainder of the forlorn hope, raising a yell of fury 
and despair, fell back. Other infuriated bands took 
their place; and these scenes were often repeated, 
invariably with the same success, until both pa,rtie8 
were incapable of taking aim on account of the dark- 
ness. 

They then procured a quantity of combustible 
matter, set fire to it, and approached under covert 
of the darkness, so near the palisades as to throw the 
burning materials into the fort. But the inmates 
had availed themselves of the two doys' consulta- 
tion, granted them by the treacherous foe, to procure 
an ample supply of water; and they had the means 
of extinguishing the burning faggots as they fell. 

Finding their efforts to fire the fort ineffectual, 
they returned again to their arms, and continued to 
fire upon the station for some days. Taught a les- 
son of prudence, however, by what had already be- 
fallen them, they kept at such a cautious distance, 
as that their fire took little effect. A project to gain 
the place, more wisely conceived, and promising 
better success, was happily discovered by Colonel 
Boone. The walls of the fort were distant sixty 
yards from the Kentucky river. The bosom of the 
current was easily discernible by the people within. 
Boone discovered in the morning that the stream 
near the shore was extremely turbid. He immedi 
ately divined the cause. 

14* 



1 62 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

The Indians had commenced a trench at the wa- 
ter level of the river bank, mining upwards towards 
the station, and intending to reach the interior bj a 
passage under the wall. He took measures to ren- 
der their project ineffectual, by ordering a trench to 
be cut inside the fort, across the line of their subter- 
raneous passage. They were probably apprised of 
the countermine that was digging within, by the 
quantity of earth thrown over the wall. But, stim- 
ulated by the encouragement of their French engi- 
neer, they continued to advance their mine towa,rds 
the wall, until, from the friability of the soil through 
which it passed, it fell in, and all their labor was lost. 
With a perseverance that in a good cause would 
have done them honor, in no wise discouraged by 
this failure to intermit their exertions, they returned 
again to their fire arms, and kept up a furious and in- 
cessant firing for some days, but producing no more 
impression upon the station than before. 

During the siege, which lasted eight days, they 
proposed frequent parleys, requesting the surrender 
of the place, and professing to treat the garrison 
with the utmost kindness. They were answered, 
that they must deem the garrison to be still more 
brutally fools than themselves, to expect that they 
would place any confidence in the proposals of 
wretches who had already manifested such base and 
stupid treachery. They were bidden to fire on, for 
that their waste of powder and lead gave the garrisoii 
little uneasiness, and were assured that they could 
not hope the surrender of the place, while there was 
a man left within it. On the morning of the niiith 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 165 

day from the commenccmcTit of the siege, after hav 
ing, as usual, wreaked their disappointed furj upon 
the cattle and swine, they decamped, and commen 
ced a retreat. 

No Indian expedition against the whites had been 
known to have had such a disastrous issue for them. 
During the siege, their loss was estimated by the gar- 
rison at two hundred killed, beside a great number 
wounded. The garrison, on the contrary, protected 
by the palisades, behind which they could lire in 
safety, and deliberately prostrate every foe that ex- 
posed himself near enough to become a mark, lost 
but two killed, and had six wounded. 

After the siege, the people of the fort, to whom 
lead was a great object, began to collect the balls 
that the Indians had tired upon them. They gath- 
ered in the logs of the fort, beside those that had fal- 
len to the ground, a hundred and twenty-five pounda. 
The failure of this desperate attempt, with such a 
powerful force, seems to have discouraged the Indi- 
ans and their Canadian alhes from making any fur- 
ther elibrt against Boonesborough. In the autumn 
of this season, Colonel Boone returned to North 
Carolina to visit his wife and family. 

When he was taken at the Blue Licks, with his 
associates, who had returned, while he was left be- 
hind in a long captivity, during which no more news 
of him transpired than as if he were actually among 
the dead, the people of the garrison naturally con- 
cluded that he had been killed. His wife and family 
numbered him as among the dead; and often had 
they shuddered on the barf* recurrence of some one 



164 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

to the probability of the tortures he had under- 
gone. Deeply attached to him, and inconsolable, 
they could no longer endure a residence which so 
painfully reminded them of their loss. As soon as 
they had settled their minds to the conviction that 
their head would return to them no more, they re- 
solved to leave these forests that had been so fatal 
to them, and return to the banks of the Yadkin, 
where were all their surviving connections. A fam- 
ily so respectable and dear to the settlement would 
not be likely to leave without having to overcome 
many tender and pressing solicitations to remain, and 
many promises that if they would, their temporal 
wants should be provided for. 

To all this Mrs. Boone could only object, that 
Kentucky had indeed been to her, as its name im- 
ported, a dark and Bloody Ground, She had lost 
her eldest son by the savage fire before they had 
reached the country. Her daughter had been 
made a captive, and had experienced a forbearance 
from the Indians to her inexplicable. She wooJd 
have been carried away to the savage towns, and 
there would have been forcibly married to some 
warrior, but for the perilous attempt, ann improba- 
ble success of her father in recapturing her. Now 
the father himself, her affectionate husband, and 
the heroic defender of the family, had fallen a sac- 
rifice, probably in the endurance of tortures on 
which the imagination dared not to dwell. Under 
the influence of griefs like these, next to the un- 
failing resource of religion, the heart naturally turns 
to the sympathy and society of those bound to it by 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 1(55 

the tie^ of nature and affinity. Thej returned to 
their friends in North Carohna. 

It was nearly five years since this now desolate 
family had started in company with the first emi- 
grating party of families, in high hopes and spirits, 
for Kentucky. We have narrated their disastrous 
rencounter with the Indians in PowelPs valley, and 
their desponding return to Clinch river. We have 
seen their subsequent return to Boonesborough, on 
Kentucky river. Tidings of the party thus far had 
reached the relatives of Mrs. Boone's family in 
North Carolina; but no news from the country west 
of the Alleghanies had subsequently reached them. 
All was uncertain conjecture, whether they still 
lived, or had perished by famine, wild beasts, or the 
Indians. 

At the close of the summer of 1778, the settle- 
ment on the Yadkin saw a company on pack horses 
approaching in the direction from the western wil- 
derness. They had often seen parties of emigrants 
departing in that direction, but it was a novel spec- 
tacle to see one return from that quarter. At the 
nead of that company was a blooming youth, scarce- 
y yet arrived at the age of manhood. It was the 
Idest surviving son of Daniel Boone. Next behind 
oim was a matronly woman, in weeds, and with a 
countenance of deep dejection. It was Mrs. Boone. 
Still behind was the daughter who had been a cap- 
tive with the Indians. The remaining children 
were too young to feel deeply. The whole group 
was respectable in appearance, though clad in skins, 
and the primitive habiliments of the wilderness. It 



168 LIFE CF DANIEL BOONE. 

might almost have been mistaken for a funeral pro- 
cession. It stopped at the house of Mr. Bryan, the 
father of Mrs. Boone. 

The people of the settlement were not long in 
coileclina: to hear news from the west, and learn the 
fate of their former favorite, Boone, and his family. 
As Mrs. Boone, in simple and backwood's phrase, 
related the thrilling story of their adventures, which 
needed no trick of venal eloquence to convey it to 
the heart, an abundant tribute of tears from the 
hearers convinced the bereaved narrator that true 
sympathy is natural to the human heart. As they 
shuddered at the dark character of man}' of the in- 
cidents related, it was an hour of triumph, notwith- 
standing their pity, for those wiser ones, who took 
care, in an under tone, to whisper that it might be 
remembered that they had predicted all that had 
happened. 



LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 107 



CHAPTER XT 

A sketch of the character and adventures of several othei picnecrs — 
Harrod, Kenton, Logan, Ray, McAffee, and others. 

Colonel Boone having seen the foimidable in- 
vasion of Boonesborough successfully repelled, and 
WT^h such a loss as would not be likely to tennpt 
tb^ Indians to repeat such assaults — and having thus 
disengaged his mind from public duties, resigned it 
to the influence of domestic sympathies. The afiec- 
tionate husband and father, concealing the tender- 
est heart under a sun-burnt and care-worn visage, 
was soon seen crossing the Alleghanies in pursuit of 
his wife and children. The bright star of his morn- 
ing promise had been long under echpse; for thi§ 
journey was one of continued difficulties, vexations, 
and dangers — so like many of his sufferings already 
recounted, that we pass them by, fearing the effect 
of incidents of so much monotony upon the reader's 
patience. The frame and spirit of the western ad- 
venturer were of iron. He surmounted all, and 
was once more in the bosom of his family on the 
Yadkin, who, in the language of the Bible, hailed 
him as one who had been dead and was alive again; 
who had been lost and zvas found. 

Many incidents of moment and interest in the 
early annals of Kentucky occurred during this re- 
union of Boone with his family. As his name is 
forever identified with these annals, we hope it will 
not be deemed altogether an episode if we introduce 



168 LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 

here a brief chronicle of those incidents — thougn 
not directly associated with the subject of our me- 
moir. In presenting those incidents, we shall be 
naturally led to speak of some of the other patii- 
archs of Kentucky — all Boones in their way — all 
strangely endowed with that peculiar character 
which fitted them for the time, place, and achieve- 
ments. We thus discover the foresight of Provi- 
dence in the arrangement of means to ends. This 
is no where seen more conspicuously than in the 
characters of the founders of states and institutions. 

During the absence of Colonel Boone, there was 
a general disposition in Kentucky to retaliate upon 
the Shawnese some of the injuries and losses which 
they had so often inflicted upon the infant settle- 
ment. Colonel Bowman, with a force of a hundred 
and sixty men, was selected to command the expedi- 
tion; and it was destined against Old Chillicothe — 
the den where the red northern savages had so long 
concentrated their expeditions against the settle- 
ments south of the Ohio. 

The force marched in the month of July, 1779, 
and reached its destination undiscovered by the Indi- 
ans. A contest commenced with the Indians at ear- 
ly dawn, which lasted until ten in the morning. 
But, although Colonel Bowman's force sustained 
itself with great gallantry, the numbers and conceal- 
ment of the enemy precluded the chance of a victo- 
ry. He retreated, with an inconsiderable loss, a 
distance of thirty miles. The Indians, collecting all 
their forces, pursued and overtook him. Another 
engagement of two hours ensued, more to the dis- 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 169 

advantage of the Kentuckians than the former. 
Colonel Harrod proposed to mount a number of 
horse, and make a cliarge upon the Indians, who 
continued the fight with great fury. This apparently 
desperate measure was followed by the happiest re- 
sults. The Indian front was broken, and their force 
thrown into irreparable confusion. Colonel Bow- 
man, having sustained a loss of nine killed and one 
wounded, afterwards continued an unmolested 
retreat. 

In June of the next year, 1780, six hundred Indi- 
ans and Canadians, commanded by Colonel Bird, a 
British officer, attacked Riddle's and Martin's sta- 
tions, at the forks of the Licking, with six pieces of 
cannon. They conducted this expedition with so 
much secrecy, that the first intimation of it which 
the unsuspecting inhabitants had, was being fired 
upon. Unprepared to resist so formidable a force, 
provided moreover with cannon, against which their 
palisade walls would not stand, they were obliged to 
surrender at discretion. The savages immediately 
prostrated one man and two women with the toma- 
hawk. All the other prisoners, many of whom were 
sick, were loaded with baggage and forced to accom- 
pany their return march to the Indian towns. Who» 
ever, whether male or female, infant or aged, became 
unable, from sickness or exhaustion, to proceed, was 
immediately dispatched with the tomahawk. 

The inhabitants, exasperated by the recital of cru- 
elties to the children and women, too horrible to be 
named, put themselves under the standard of the 

intrepid and successful General Clarke, who com- 
15 



170 LIFE or DANIEL BOONE. 

manded a regiment of United States' troops at the 
falls of Ohio. He was joined bj a number of vol- 
unteers from the country, and they marched against 
Pickaway, one of the principal towns of the Shaw- 
nese, on the Great Miami. He conducted this ex- 
pedition with his accustomed good fortune. He 
burnt their town to ashes. Beside the dead, which, 
according to their custom, the Indians carried oflj 
seventeen bodies were left behind. The loss of 
General Clarke was seventeen killed. 

We here present brief outlines of some of the 
other more prominent western pioneers, the kindred 
spirits, the Boones of Kentucky. High spirited 
intelligent, intrepid as they were, they can never 
supplant the reckless hero of Kentucky and Mis- 
souri in our thoughts. It is true, these men deserve 
to have their memories perpetuated in monumental 
brass, and the more enduring page of history. But 
there is a sad interest attached to the memory of 
Daniel Boone, which can never belong, in an equal 
degree, to theirs. They foresaw what this beautiful 
country would become in the hands of its new pos- 
sessors. Extending their thoughts beyond the ken 
of a hunter's calculations, they anticipated the con- 
sequences of huts and bounds j officers of registry ac^ 
record, and courts of justice. In due time, they se- 
cured a fair and adequate reversion in the soil which 
they had planted and so nobly defended. Hence, 
their posterity, with the inheritance of their name 
and renown, enter into the heritage of their posses- 
sions, and find an honorable and an abundant resi- 
dence in the country which their fathers settled. 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 171 

Boone, on the contrary, was too simple-nnnded, too 
little given to prospective calculations, and his heart 
in too much what was passing under his eye, to make 
this thrifty forecast. In age, in penury, landless, 
and without a home, he is seen leaving Kentucky, 
then an opulent and flourishing country, for a new 
wilderness and new scenes of adventure. 

Among the names of the conspicuous backwoods- 
men who settled the west, we cannot fail to recog- 
nize that of James Harrod. He was from the banks 
of the Monongahela, and among the earliest immi- 
grants to the '^Bloody Ground." He descended the 
Great Kenhawa, and returned to Pennsylvania in 
1774. He made himself conspicuous with a party 
of his friends at the famous contest v*'ith the Indiana 
at the "Point." Next year he returned to Kentucky 
with a party of immigrants, fixing himself at one of 
the earhest settlements in the country, which, in 
honor of him, was called Harrodsburgh. 

Nature had moulded him of a form and tempera- 
ment to look the formidable red man in the face. He 
was six feet, muscular, broad chested, of a firm and 
animated countenance, keen and piercing eyes, and 
sparing of speech. He gained himself an imperish- 
able name in the annals of Kentucky, under the ex- 
ti'eme disadvantage of not knowing how to read or 
write! Obliging and benevolent to his neighbors, 
he was brave and active in their defence. A suc- 
cessful, because a persevering and intelligent hunter, 
he was liberal to profuseness in the distribution of the 
spoils. Vigilant and unerring with his rifle, it WdS 
at one time directed against the abundant game for 



172 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

the sake of his friends rather than himself; and at 
others, against the enemies of his country. Guided 
hy the inexphcahle instinct of forest skill, he could 
conduct the wanderer in the woods from point to 
point through the wilderness, as the needle guides 
the mariner upon the ocean. So endowed, others 
equally illiterate, and less gifted, naturally, and from 
instinct, arranged themselves under his banner, and 
fearlessly followed such a leader. 

If it was reported, that a family, recently arrived 
in the country, and not yet acquainted with the 
backwood's modes of supply, was in want of food, 
Ilarrod was seen at the cabin door, offering the body 
of a deer or buffalo, which he had just killed. The 
commencing farmer, who had lost his oxen, or plough 
horse, in the range, and unused to the vocation of 
hunting them, or fearful of the Indian rifle, felt no 
hesitancy, from his known character, in applying to 
Harrod. He would disappear in the woods, and in 
the exercise of his own wonderful tact, the lost beast 
was soon seen driving to the door. 

But the precincts of a station, or the field of a farm, 
were too uncongenial a range for such a spirit as his. 
To breathe the fresh forest air — to range deserts 
where man was not to be seen — to pursue the wild 
deer and buffalo — to trap the bear and the wolf, or 
beside the still pond, or the unexplored stream, 
to catch otters and beavers — to bring down the 
wild turkey from the summit of the highest trees; 
i^uch were the congenial pursuits in which he de- 
lighted. 

But, in a higher sphere, and in the service of his 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 173 

country, he united the instinctive tact and dexterity 
of a huntsman with the bravery of a soldier. No 
labor was too severe for his hardihood; no enterprise 
too daring and forlorn for his adventure; no course 
too intricate and complicated for his judgment, so far 
as native talent could guide it. As a Colonel of the 
militia, he conducted expeditions against the Indians 
with uncommon success. After the country had 
become populous, and he a husband and a father, in 
the midst of an affectionate family, possessed of every 
comfort — such was the effect of temperament, oper- 
ating upon habit, that he became often silent and 
thoughtful in the midst of the social cjrcle, and was 
seen in that frame to wander away into remote for 
ests, and to bury himself amidst the unpeopled knobs, 
w here, in a few" weeks, he would reacquire his cheer 
fulness. In one of these excursions he disappeared, 
and was seen no more, leaving no trace to determine 
whether he died a natural death, was skiin by wild 
bcr.sts, or the tomahawk of the savage. 

Among the names of many of the first settlers of 
Harrodsburgh, are those that are found most promi- 
nent in the early annals of Kentucky. In the first 
list of these we find the names of McGary, IIarlan(l, 
McBride, and Chaplain. Among the young settlers, 
none were more conspicuous for active, daring, and 
meritorious service, than James Ray. Prompt at his 
post at the first moment of alarm, brave in the field, 
fearless and persevering in the pursuit of the enemy, 
scarcely a battle, skirmish, or expedition took place 
in which he had not a distinguished part. Equally 

expert as a woodsman, and skilful and successful as 
15* 



174 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

a hunter, he was often employed as a spy. It is re- 
corded of him that he left his garrison, when short 
of provisions, by night marched to a forest at the dis- 
tance of six miles, killed a buffalo, and, loaded with 
the choice parts of the flesh, returned to regale the 
hungry inhabitants in the morning. He achieved 
this enterprise, too, when it was well known that the 
vicinity v,»as thronged with Indians, lurking for an 
opportunity to kill. These are the positions which 
try the daring and skill, the usefulness and value of 
men, furnishing a criterion which cannot be coun- 
terfeited between reality and resemblance. 

We may perhaps in this place most properly in- 
troduce another of the famous partisans in savage 
warfare, Simon Kenton, alias Butler, who, from hum- 
ble beginnings, made himself conspicuous by distin- 
guished services and achievements in the first settle- 
ments of this country, and ought to be recorded as 
one of the patriarchs of Kentucky. He was born 
in Virginia, in 1753. He grew to maturity without 
being able to read or write; but from his early ex- 
ploits he seems to have been endowed with feelings 
which the educated and those born in the uppei 
walks of life, appear to suppose a monopoly reserved 
for themselves. It is recorded of him, that at 
the age of nineteen, he had a violent contest with 
another competitor for the favor of the lady of his 
love. She refused to make an election between 
them, and the subject of this notice indignantly ex- 
iled himself from his native place. After various 
peregrinations on the long rivers of the west, he fixed 
himself in Kentucky, and soon became a dis- 



LIFE OF DANIKL BOONK. 175 

tinguished partisan against the savages. In 1774, 
he joined himself to Lord Diinmorc, and was ap- 
pointed one of his spies. He made various excur- 
sions, and performed important services in this em- 
ploy. He finally selected a place for improvement 
on the site where Washington now is. Returning 
>ne day from hunting, he found one of his compan- 
ons slain by the Indians, and his body thrown into 
he fire. He left Washington in consequence, and 
loined himself to Colonel Clarke in his fortunate 
tnd gallant expedition against Yincennes and Kas- 
vaskia. He was sent by that commander with 
despatches for Kentucky. He passed through the 
btreets of Yincennes, then in possession of the Bri- 
tish and Indians, without discovery. Arriving at 
iYhite river, he and his party made a raft on which 
to cross with their guns and baggage, driving their 
horses into the river and compelling them to swim 
it. A party of Indians was concealed on the op- 
posite bank, who took possession of the horses as 
they mounted the bank from crossing the river. 
Butler and his party seeing this, continued to float 
down the river on their raft without coming to land. 
They concealed themselves in the bushes until 
night, when they crossed the river, pursued their 
journey, and delivered their despatches. 

After this, Butler made a journey of discovery to 
the northern regions of the Ohio country, and wa3 
made prisoner by the Indians. They painted him 
black, as is their custom when a victim is destined 
for their torture, and informed him tliat he was to 
be burned at Chillicothe. Meanwhile, for their 



176 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

own amusement, and as a prelude of liis torture, 
thej manacled him hand and foot, and placed him 
on an un])ridled a.nd unbroken horse, and turned the 
animal loose, driving it olf at its utmost speed, with 
shouts, delighted vd witnessing its mode of mana- 
ging with its living burden. The horse unable to 
shake off this new and strange encumbrance, made 
for the thickest covert of the woods and brambles, 
with the speed of the winds. It is easy to conjec- 
ture the position and suffering of the victim. The 
terrified animal exhausted itself in fruitless efforts to 
shake off its burden, and worn down and subdued, 
brought Butler back amidst the jells of the exulting 
savages to the camp. 

Arrived within a mile of Chillicothe, they halted, 
took Butler from his horse and tied him to a stake, 
where he rem^Mued twenty-four hours in one posi- 
tion. He vv'as taken from the stake to "run the 
gauntlet." The Indian mode of managing this 
kind of torture was as follows: The inhabitants of 
the tribe, old and young, were placed in parallel 
lines, armed with clubs and switches. The victim 
was to make his way to the council house through 
these files, every member of which struggled to 
beat him as he passed as severely as possible. If 
he reached the council house alive, he was to be 
spared. In the lines were nearly six hundred In- 
dians, and Butler had to make his way almost a mile 
in the endurance of this infernal sport. He was 
started by a blow; but soon broke through the files, 
and had almost reached the council house, when a 
stout warrior knocked him down with a club. He 



LIFE OF DAl^IEL BOONE. 1T7 

was severely beaten in this position, and taken back 
again into custody. 

It seems incredible that they sometimes adopted 
their prisoners, and treated them with the utmost 
lenity and even kindness. At other times, ingenuity 
was exhausted to invent tortures, and every renewed 
endurance of the victim seemed to stimulate their 
vengeance to new discoveries of cruelty. Butler 
was one of these ill-fated subjects. No way satis- 
fied with what they had done, they marched him 
from village to village to give all a spectacle of his 
sufferings. He run the gauntlet thirteen times. 
He made various attempts to escape; and in one 
instance would have effected it, had he not been 
arrested by some savages who were accidentally 
returning to the village from which he was escaping. 
It was finally determined to burn him at the Lower 
Sandusky, but an apparent accident changed his 
destiny. 

In passing to the stake, the procession went by 
the cabin of Girty, of whom we have already spo- 
ken. This renegado white man lived among these 
Indians, and had just returned from an unsuccessful 
expedition against the whites on the frontiers of 
Pennsylvania. The wretch burned with disap- 
pointment and revenge, and hearing that there was 
a white man going to the torture, determined to 
wreak his vengeance on him. He found the un- 
fortunate Butler, threw him to the ground, and be- 
gan to beat him. Butler, who instantly recognized 
in Girty the quondam companion and playmate of 
youth, at once made himself known to him. This 



178 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

sacramental tie of friendship, on recognition, caused 
the savage heart of Girty to relent. lie raised him 
up, and promised to save him. He procured the 
assemblage of a council, and persuaded the savages 
to relinquish Butler to him. He took the unfortu- 
nate man home, fed, and clothed him, and Butler 
began to recruit from his wounds and torture. But 
the relenting of the savages was only transient and 
momentary. After five daj^s they repented of their 
relaxation in his favor, reclaimed him, and marched 
him to Lower Sandusky to be burned there, accor- 
ding to their original purpose. By a fortunate coin- 
cidence, he there met the Indian agent from De- 
troit, who, from motives of humanity, exerted his 
influence with the savages for his release, and took 
him with him to Detroit. Here he was paroled by 
the Governor. He escaped; and being endowed, 
like Daniel Boone, to be at home in the woods, by 
a march of thirty days through the wilderness, he 
reached Kentucky. 

In 1784, Simon Kenton reoccupied the settle- 
ment, near Washington, which he had commenced 
in 1775. Associated with a number of people, he 
erected a block-house, and made a station here. 
This became an important point of covering and 
defence for the interior country. Immigrants felt 
more confidence in landing at Limestone. To ren- 
der this confidence more complete, Kenton and his 
associates built a block-house at Limestone. Two 
men, of the name of Tanner, had made a small set' 
tlement the year preceding at Blue Lick, and were 
now making salt there. The route from Limestone 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 



179 



to Lexington became one of the most picneral travel 
for immigrants, and many stations sprang up upon 
it. Travellers to the country had hitherto been 
compelled to sleep under the open canopy, exposed 
to the rains and dews of the night. But cabins 
were now so common, that they might generally 
repose under a roof that sheltered them from the 
weather, and find a bright fire, plenty of wood, and 
with the rustic fare, a most cheerful and cordial 
welcome. The people of these new regions were 
hospitable from native inclination. They were hos- 
pitable from circumstances. None but those who 
dwell in a wilderness, where the savages roam and 
the wolves howl, can understand all the pleasant 
associations connected with the sight of a strangei 
of the same race. The entertainer felt himself 
stronger from the presence of his guest. His offer- 
ed food and fare were the spoils of the chase. He 
heard news from the old settlements and the great 
world; and he saw in the accession of every stran- 
ger a new guaranty of the security, wealth, and im- 
provement of the infant country where he had cho 
sen his resting place. 

Among other worthy associates of Boone, we may 
I mJntion the family of McAfee. Two brothers, 
James and Robert, emigrated from the county of 
Botetourt, Virginia, and settled on Salt river, six 
miles from Harrodsburgh. Having revisited their 
parent country, on their return they brought with 
them Wilham and George McAfee. In 1777, the 
Indians destroyed the whole of their valuable stock 
of cattle, while they were absent from Kentucky. 



180 LIFE OI DANIEL BOONE. 

In 1779 they returned, and settled McAfee's sta* 
tion, which was suhseqnently compelled to take it3 
full share in the sufferings and dangers of Indian 
hostilities. 

Benjamin Logan immigrated to the country in 
1775, as a private citizen. But he was a man of 
too much character to remain unnoted. As his 
character developed, he was successively appointed 
a magistrate, elected a member of the legislature 
and rose, as a military character, to the rank ot 
general. His parents were natives of Ireland, who 
emigrated, while young, to Pennsylvania, where 
they married, and soon afterwards removed to Au- 
gusta county, Virginia. 

Benjamin, their oldest son, was born there; and at 
the age of fourteen, lost his father. Charged, at 
this early age, with the care of a widowed mother, 
and children still younger than himself, neither the 
circumstances of his family, of the country, or his 
peculiar condition, allowed him the chances of ed- 
ucation. Almost as unlettered as James Harrod, 
he was a memorable extimple of a self-formed man. 
Great natural acuteness, and strong intellectual 
powers, were, however, adorned by a disposition of 
uncommon benevolence. Under the eye of an ex- 1 
cellent father, he commenced with the rudiments of 
common instruction, the soundest lessons of Chiis 
tian piety and morality, which were continued by 
the guidance and example of an admirable mother^ 
with whom he resided until he was turned of twen- 
ty-one. 

His father had deceased intestate, and, in virtue of 



LIFE OF DANIEL HOOJVE. 181 

the laws then in force, the whole extensive in- 
heritance of his father's lands descended to him, 
to the exclusion of his brothers and sisters. His 
example ought to be recorded for the benefit of 
those grasping children in these days, who, dead 
to all natural affection, and every sentiment but 
avarice, seize all that the law will grant, whether 
equity will sanction it or not. Disregarding this 
claim of primogeniture, he insisted that the whole 
inheritance should be parceled into equal shares, 
of which he accepted only his own. But the gen- 
erous impulses of his noble nature, were not limited 
to the domestic circle. His hea.rt was warm with 
the more enlarged sentiments of patriotism. At 
the age of twenty-one, he accompanied Colonel 
Beauquette, as a serjeant, in a hostile expedition 
against the Indians of the north. Having provided 
for the comfortable settlement of his mother and 
family on James River, Virginia, he moved to the 
Holston, where he settled and married. 

Having been in the expedition of Lord Dunmore 
against the Indians, and having thus acquired a 
taste for forest marches and incident, he determined, 
in 1775, to try his fortunes in Kentucky, which 
country had then just become a theme of discus- 
sion. He set forth from his mother's family with 
three slaves, leaving the rest to her. In Powell's 
valley he met with Boone, Henderson, and other 
kindred spirits, and pursued his journey towards 
Kentucky in company with them. He parted from 
them, before they reached Boonesborough, and se- 
16 



182 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

lected a spot for himself, afterwards called Logan's 
fort, or station. 

In the winter of 1776, he removed his family 
from Holston, and in March, arrived with it in 
Kentucky. It was the same year in which the 
daughter of Col. Boone, and those of Col. Callo- 
way were made captives. The whole country be- 
ing in a state of alarm, he endeavored to assemble 
some of the settlers that were dispersed in the 
country called the Crab Orchard, to join him at 
his cabins, and there form a station of sufficient 
strength to defend itself against Indian assault. 
But finding them timid and unresolved, he was him- 
seif oMiged to desert his incipient settlement, and 
move for safety to Harrodsbargh. Yet, such was 
his determination not to abandon his selected spot, 
that he raised a crop of corn there, defenceless and 
surrounded on all sides by Indian incursion. 

In the winter of 1777, and previous to the at- 
tack of Harrodsburgh, he found six families ready 
to share with him the dangers of the selected spot; 
and he removed his family with them to his cabins, 
where the settlement immediately united in the im- 
portant duty of palisading a station. 

Before these arrangements were fully completed 
as the females of the establishment, on the twen- 
tieth of May, were milking their cows, sustained by 
a gu-^rd of their husbands and fathers, the whole 
party was suddenly assailed by a large body of In- 
dians, concealed in a cane-brake. One man was 
killed, and two wounded, one mortally, the other 
severely. The remainder reached the interior of 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 183 

se palisades in safety. The number in all was 
Jiirty, half of whoni were women and children. 
A circumstance was now discovered, exceedingly 
tiying to such a benevolent spirit as that of Logan. 
While the Indians were still firing, and the inmates 
part exulting in their safety, and the others mourn- 
ing over their dead and wounded, it was perceived, 
that one of the wounded, by the name of Harrison, 
was still alive, and exposed every moment to be 
scalped by the Indians. All this his wife and fam- 
ily could discern from within. It is not difficult to 
imagine their agonizing condition, and piercing 
lamentations for the fate of one so dear to them. 
Logan discovered, on this occasion, the same keen 
sensibility to tenderness, and insensibility to dan- 
ger, that characterized his friend Boone in similar 
predicaments. He endeavored to rally a few of 
the small number of the male inmates of the place 
to join him, and rush out, and assist in attempting to 
bring the wounded man within the paHsades. But 
so obvious was the danger, so forlorn appeared the 
enterprise, that no one could be found disposed to 
volunteer his aid, except a single individual by the 
name of John Martin. When they had reached 
the gate, the wounded man raised himself partly 
erect, and made a movement, as if disposed to try 
to reach the fort himself. On this, Martin desisted 
from the enterprise, and leil Logan to attempt 
it alone. He rushed forward to the wounded man. 
He made some efforts to crawl onwards by the aid 
of Logan; but weakened by the loss of blood, and 
the agony of his wounds, he fainted, and Logan 



184 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

taking him up in his arms, bore him towards the 
fort. A shower of bullets was discharged upon 
them, many of which struck the palisades close to 
his head, as he brought the wounded man safe 
within the gate, and deposited him in the care of 
his family. 

The station, at this juncture, was destitute of both 
p Js^der and ball; and there was no chance of sup- 
ply nearer than Holston. All intercourse between 
station and station w^as cut oif. Without ammuni- 
tion the station could not be defended against the 
Indians. The question w^as, how to obviate this 
pressing emergency, and obtain a supply? Cap- 
tain Logan selected tw^o trusty companions, left the 
fort by night, evaded the besieging Indians, reach- 
ed the w^oods, and w ith his companions made his 
way in safety to Ilolston, procured the necessary 
supply of ammunition, packed it under their care 
on horseback, giving them directions how to pro- 
ceed. He then left them, and traversing the forests 
by a shorter route on foot, he reached the fort in 
safety, in ten days from his departure. The In- 
dians still kept up the siege with unabated perseve- 
rance. The hopes of the diminished garrison had 
given way to despair. The return of Logan inspi- 
red them with renewed confidence. 

Uniting the best attributes of a woodsman and a 
soldier to uncommo.i local acquaintance with the 
country, his instinctive sagacity prescribed to him, 
on this journey, the necessity of deserting the beat- 
en path, where, he was aware, he should be inter- 
cepted by the savages. Avoiding, from the same 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONF,. 185 

calculation, the passage of the Cumberland Gap, he 
explored a track in which man, or at least the white 
man, had never trodden before. We may add, it 
has never been trodden since. Through cane- 
brakes and tangled thickets, over cliifs and precipi- 
ces, and pathless mountains, he made his solitary 
way. Following his directions implicitly, his com- 
panions, who carried the ammunition, also reached 
the fort, and it wa? saved. 

His rencounters with the Indians, and his hair- 
breadth escapes make no inconsiderable figure in 
the subsequent annals of Kentucky. The year 
after the siege of his fort, on a hunting excursion, 
he discovered an Indian camp, at Big Flat Spring, 
two miles from his station. Returning immedi- 
ately he raised a party, with which he attacked 
the camp, from which the Indians fled with precip- 
itation, without much loss on their part, and none 
on his. A short time after he was attacked at the 
same place, by another party of Indians. His arm 
was broken by their fire, and he was otherwise 
sUghtly wounded in the breast. They even seized 
the mane of his horse, and he escaped them from 
their extreme eagerness to take him alive. 

No sooner were his wounds healed, than we find 
him in the fore front of the expedition against the 
Indians. In 1779, he served as a captain in Bow- 
man's campaign. He signalized his bravery in the 
unfortunate battle that ensued, and was with diffi- 
culty compelled to retire, when retreat became 
necessary. The next year a party travelling from 
Harrodsburgh towards Logan's fort, were fired upon 
16* 



186 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

by the Indians, and two of them mortally wounded 
One, however, survived to reach the fort, and give 
an account of the fate of his wounded companion. 
Logan immediately raised a small party of young 
men, and repaired to the aid of the wounded man, 
who had crawled out of sight of the Indians behind 
a clump of bushes. He was still alive. Logan 
took him on his shoulders, occasionally reheved in 
sustaining the burden by his younger associates, 
and in this way conveyed him to the fort. On 
their return from Harrodsburgh, Logan's party 
were fired upon, and one of the party wounded. 
The assailants were repelled with loss; and it was 
Logan's fortune again to be the bearer of the 
wounded man upon his shoulders for a long distance, 
exposed, the while, to the fire of the Indians. 

His reputation for bravery and hospitahty, and 
the influence of a long train of connections, caused 
him to be the instrument of bringing out many im- 
migrants to Kentucky. They were of a character 
to prove an acquisition to the country. Like his 
friends, Daniel Boone, and James Harrod, his house 
was open to all the recent immigrants. In the 
early stages of the settlement of the country, his 
station, like Boone's and Harrod's, was one of the 
main pillars of the colony. Feeling the importance 
of this station, as a point of support to the infant 
settlements, he took effectual measures to keep 
up an intercourse with the other stations, partic- 
ularly those of Boone and Harrod. Dangerous 
as this intercourse was, Logan generally travelled 
alone, often by night, and universally with such 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 187 

swiftness of foot, that few could he found ahle to 
keep speed with him. 

In the year 1780, he received his commission as 
Colonel, and was soon after a member of the Vir- 
ginia legislature at Richmond. In tlie year 1781, 
the Indians attacked Montgomery's station, consist- 
ing of six families, connected by blood with Colo- 
nel Logan. The father and brother of Mrs. Lo- 
gan were killed, and her sister-in-law, with four 
children, taken prisoners. This disaster occurred 
about ten miles from Logan's fort. His first object 
was to rescue the prisoners, and his next to chas- 
tise the barbarity of the Indians. He immediately 
collected a party of his fiiends, and repaired to the 
scene of action. He was here joined by the be- 
reaved relatives of ^Montgomery's family. He com- 
manded a rapid pursuit of the enemy, who were 
soon overtaken, and briskly attacked. They faced 
upon their assailants, but were beaten after a se- 
vere conflict. William Montgomery killed three 
Indians, and wounded a fourth. Two women and 
three children were rescued. The savages murder- 
ed the other child to prevent its being re-taken. 
The other prisoners would have experienced the 
same fate, had they not fled for their lives into the 
thickets. 

It would be very easy to extend this brief sketch 
of some of the more conspicuous pioneers of Ken- 
tucky. Their heroic and disinterested services, 
their lavish prodigality of their blood and property, 
gave them that popularity which is universally felt 



188 LIFE OF DANIEI BOONE. 

to be a high and priceless acquisition. Loved, and 
trusted, and honored as fathers of their country, 
while they lived, they had the persuasion of such 
generous minds as theirs, that their names would 
descend with blessings to their grateful posterity 



LITE OF DANIEL BOONE. 189 



CHAPTER XII. 

Boone's brother killed, and Boone himself narrowly escapes from th» 
Indians — Assault upon Ashton's station — and upon the station near 
Shelbyville — Attack upon McAffee's station. 

We have already spoken of the elder brother of 
Col. Boone and his second return to the Yadkin, 
A fondness for the ^vestern valleys seems to have 
been as deeply engraven in his ciffections, as in the 
heart of his brother. He subsequently returned 
once more with his family to Kentucky. In 1780 
we find a younger brother of Daniel Boone resi- 
dent with him. The two brothers set out on the 
sixth of October of that year, to revisit the blue 
Licks. It may well strike us as a singular fact, that 
Colonel Boone should have felt any disposition to 
revisit a place that was connected with so many 
former disasters. But, as a place convenient for 
the manufacture of salt, it was a point of impor- 
tance to the rapidly growing settlement. They 
had manufactured as much salt as they could pack, 
and were returning to Boonesborough, when they 
were overtaken by a party of Indians. By the first 
fire Colonel Boone's brother fell dead by his side. 
Daniel Boone faced the enemy, and aimed at the 
foremost Indian, who appeared to have been the 
slayer of his brother. That Indian fell. By this 
time he discovered a host advancing upon him. 
Taking the still loaded rifle of his fallen brother, 
he prostrated another foe, and while flying from hia 



190 



LIFE OP PANIEL BOONE. 



enemy found time to reload his rifle. The bullets 
of a dozen muskets whistled about his head; but 
the distance of the foe rendered them harmless. 
No scalp would have been of so much value to his 
pursuers as that of the well known Daniel Boone; 
and they pursued him with the utmost eagerness. 
His object was so far to outstrip them, as to be able 
to conceal his trail, and put them to fault in regard 
to his course. He made for a little hill, behind 
which was a stream of water. He sprang into the 
water and waded up its current for some distance, 
and then emerged and struck off at right angles to 
his former course. Darting onward at the height 
of his speed, he hoped that he had distanced them, 
and thrown them off his trail. To his infinite mor- 
tification, he discovered that his foe, either acci- 
dentallj, or from their natural sagacity, had render- 
ed all his caution fruitless, and were fiercely pursu- 
ing him still. His next expedient was that of a 
swing by the aid of a grape-vine, which had so 
well served him on a like occasion before. He 
soon found one convenient for the experiment, and 
availed himself of it, as before. This hope was 
also disappointed. His foe still hung with staunch 
peseverance on his trail. He now perceived hy 
their movements, that they were conducted by a 
dog, that easily ran in zig-zag directions, when at 
fault, until it had re-scented his course. The expe- 
dient of Boone was the only one that seemed ade- 
quate to save him. His gun was reloaded. The 
dog was in advance of the Indians, still scenting his 
track. A rifle shot delivered him from his oflicioua 



LIFE OF DANfEL BOONE. 191 

pursuer. He soon reached a point convenient for 
concealing his trail, and while the Indians were 
hunting for it, gained so much upon them as to he 
enabled to reach Boonesborough in safety. 

At the close of the autumn of 1780, Kentucky, 
from being one county, was divided into three, 
named Jefferson, Fayette, and Lincoln. William 
Pope, Daniel Boone, and Benjamin Logan, were 
appointed to the important offices of comm.anding 
the militia of their respective counties. 

During this year Col. Clarke descended the Ohio, 
with a part of his Virginia regiment, and after en- 
tering the Mississippi, at the first bluff on the eas- 
tern bank, he landed and built Fort Jefferson. The 
occupation of this fort, for the time, added the 
Chickasaws to the number of hostile Indians that the 
western people had to encounter. It was soon dis- 
covered, that it would be advisable to evacuate it, as 
a mean of restoring peace. It was on their ac- 
knowleged territory. It had been erected without 
their consent. They boasted it, as a proof of their 
fiiendship, that they had never invaded Kentucky; 
and they indignantly resented this violation of their 
territory. The evacuation of the fort was the terms 
of a peace which the Chickasaws faithfully observed. 
The winter of 1781, was one of unusual length 
and distress for the young settlement of Kentucky. 
Many of the immigrants arrived after the close of 
the hunting season; and beside, were unskilful in 
the difficult pursuit of supplying themselves with 
game. The Indians had destroyed most of the corn 
of the preceding summer, and the number of per- 



193 LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 

sons to be supplied had rapidly increased. These 
circumstances created a temporary famine, which, 
added to the severity of the season, inflicted much 
severe suffering upon the settlement. Boone and 
Harrod were abroad, breasting the keen forest air, 
and seeking the retreat of the deer and buffalo, now 
becoming scarce, as the inhabitants multiplied. 
These indefatigable and intrepid men supplied the 
hungry immigrants with the flesh of buffaloes and 
deers; and the hardy settlers, accustomed to priva- 
tions, and not to over delicacy in their food, content- 
ed themselves to live entirely on meat, until, in the 
ensuing autumn, they once more derived abundance 
from the fresh and fertile soil. 

In May, 1782, a body of savages assaulted Ash- 
ton's station, killed one man, and took another pris- 
oner. Captain Ashton, with twenty-five men, pur- 
sued and overtook them. An engagement, which 
lasted two hours, ensued. But the great superiority 
of the Indians in number, obliged Captain Ashton 
to retreat. The loss of this intrepid party was se- 
vere. Eight were killed, and four mortally woun- 
ded — their brave commander being among the nuni- 
berof the slain. Four children were taken captive 
from Major Hoy's station, in August following. 
Unwarned by the fate of Captain Ashton's party, 
Captain Holden, with the inadequate force of seven- 
teen men, pursued the captors, came up with them, 
and were defeated with the loss of four men killed, 
and one wounded. 

This was one of the most disastrous periods since 
the settlement o^ the country. A number of the 



OF DA.NIEL BOONE. 193 

more recent and feeble stations, were so annoyed 
by savage hostility as to be broken up. The horses 
were carried off, and the cattle killed in every di- 
rection. Near Lexington, a man at work in his 
field, was shot dead by a single Indian, who ran upon 
bis foe to scalp him, and wcis himself shot dead frorr 
the fort, and fell on the body of his foe. 

During the severity of winter, the fury of Indian 
incursion was awhile suspended, and the stern and 
scarred hunters had a respite of a few weeks about 
their cabin fires. But in March, the hostihties were 
renewed, and several marauding parties of Indians 
enteied the country from north of the Ohio. Col. 
William Lyn, and Captains Tipton and Chapman, 
were killed by small detachments that waylaid them 
upon the Beargrass. In pursuit of one of these par- 
ties. Captain Aquila White, with seventeen men 
trailed the Indians to the Falls of the Ohio. Sup- 
posing that they had crossed, he embarked his men 
in canoes to follow them on the other shore. They 
had just committed themselves to the stream, when 
they were fired upon from the shore they had left. 
Nine of the party were killed or wounded. Yet, 
enfeebled as the remainder were, they relanded, 
faced the foe, and compelled them to retreat. 

In April following, a station settled by Econe's 
elder brother, near the present site where Shelby- 
ville now stands, became alarmed by the appearance 
of parties of Indians in its vicinity. The people, in 
consternation, unadvisedly resolved to remove to 
Beargrass. The men accordingly set out encumber- 
ed with women, children, and baggage. In this de- 
17 



194 LITE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

fenceless predicament, they were attacked by the 
Indians near Long Run. They experienced some 
loss, and a general dispersion from each other in the 
woods. Colonel Floyd, in great haste, raised twen- 
ty-five men, and repaired to the scene of action, 
intent alike upon administering relief to the suffer- 
ers, and chastisement to the enemy. He divided 
his party, and advanced upon them with caution. 
But their superior knowledge of the country, ena- 
bled the Indians to ambuscade both divisions, and to 
defeat them with the loss of half his men; a loss 
poorly compensated by the circumstance, that a still 
greater number of the savages fell in the engage- 
ment. The number of the latter were supposed to 
be three times that of Colonel Floyd's party. The 
Colonel narrowly escaped with his life, by the aid 
of Captain Samuel Wells, who, seeing him on foot, 
pursued by the enemy, dismounted and gave him his 
own horse, and as he fled, ran by his side to support 
him on the saddle, fi^om which he might have fallen 
through weakness from his wounds. — This act of 
Captain Wells was the more magnanimous, as Floyd 
and himself were not friends at the time. Such no- 
ble generosity was not thrown away upon Floyd. 
It produced its natural effect, and these two persons 
lived and died friends. It is pleasant to record 
such a mode of quelling animosity. 

Early in May, two men, one of whom was Sam- 
uel McAfee, left James McAfee's station, to go to a 
clearing at a short distance. They had advanced 
about a fourth of a mile, when they were fired upon. 
The companion of McAfee fell. The latter turned 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 195 

and fled towards the station. He had not gained 
more than fifteen steps when he met an Indian. 
Both paused a moment to raise their guns, in order 
to discharge them. The muzzles almost touched. 
Both fired at the same moment. The Indian's gun 
flashed in the pan, and he fell. McAfee continued 
his retreat; but before he reached the station, its in- 
mates had heard the report of the guns; and James 
and Robert, brothers of McAfee, had come out to 
the aid of those attacked. The three brothers met. 
Robert, notwithstanding the caution he received 
from his brother, ran along the path to see the dead 
Indian. The party of Indians to which he had be- 
longed, were upon the watch among the trees, and 
several of them placed themselves between Robert 
and the station, to intercept his return. Soon made 
aware of the danger to which his thoughtlessness 
had exposed him, he found all his dexterity and 
knowledge of Indian warfare requisite to ensure his 
safety. He sprang from behind one tree to another, 
in the direction of the station, pursued by an Indian 
until he reached a fence within a hundred yards of 
it, which he cleared by a leap. The Indian had 
posted himself behind a tree to take safe aim. — 
McAfee was now prepared for him. As the Indian 
put his head out from the cover of his tree, to look 
for his object, he caught McAfee's ball in his mouth, 
and fell. McAfee reached the station in safety. 

James, though he did not expose himself as his 
brother had done, was fired upon by five Indians 
who lay in ambush. He fled to a tree for protec- 
tion. Immediately after he had gained one, three or 



196 LIFE OF DANIEL BOOAE. 

four aimed at him from the other side. The holh 
scattered earth upon him, as they struck around his 
feet, but he remained unharmed. He had no sooner 
entered the inclosure of the station in safety, than 
Indians were seen approaching in all directions. 
Their accustomed horrid yells preceded a general 
attack upon the station. Their fire was returned 
with spirit, the women running balls as fast as they 
were required. The attack continued two hours, 
when the Indians withdrew. 

The firing had aroused the neighborhood; and 
soon after the retreat of the Indians, Major McGary 
appeared with forty men. It was determined to 
pursue the Indians, as they could not have advanced 
far. This purpose was immediately carried into 
execution. The Indians were overtaken and com- 
pletely routed. The station suffered inconvenience 
from the loss of their domestic animals, which were 
all killed by the Indians, previous to their retreat. 
One white man was killed and another died of his 
wounds in a few days. This was the last attack 
upon this station by the Indians, although it remain- 
ed for some years a frontier post. 

We might easily swell these annals to volumes, 
by entering into details of the attack of Kincheloe's 
station, and its defence by Colonel Floyd; the ex- 
ploits of Thomas Randolph; the captivity of Mrs. 
Bland and Peake; and the long catalogue of recor- 
ded narratives of murders, burnings, assaults, heroic 
defences, escapes, and the various incidents of In- 
dian warfare upon the incipient settlements. While 
their barbarity and horror chill the blood, they show 



LIFE OF DANIEL UOONE. 



197 



us what sort of men the first settlers of the country 
were, and what scenes they had to witness, and 
what events to meet, before they prepared for us 
our present peace and abundance. The danger 
and apprehension of their condition must have been 
such, that we cannot well imagine how they could 
proceed to the operations of building and fencing, 
with sufficient composure and quietness of spirit, to 
complete the slow and laborious preUminaries of 
founding such estabhshments, as they have transmit- 
ted to their children. Men they must have been, 
who could go firmly and cheerfully to the common 
occupations of aguculture, with their lives in their 
hands, and under the constant expectation of being 
greeted from the thickets and cane-brakes with the 
rifle bullet and the Indian yell. Even the vvomen 
were heroes, and their are instances in abundance 
on record, where, in defence of their children and 
cabins, they conducted with an undaunted energy of 
attack or defence, which would throw into shade the 
vaunted bravery in the bulletins of regular battles. 

These magnanimous pioneers seem to have had 
a presentiment that they had a great work to ac- 
complish—laying the foundations of a state in the 
wilderness— a work from which they were to be de- 
terred, neither by hunger, nor toil, nor danger, nor 
death. For tenderness and affection, they had 
hearts of flesh. For the difiiculties and dangers of 
their positions, tlieir bosoms were of iron. They 
FEATI.ED God, and had no other fear. 

17* 



198 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Disastrous battle near the Blue Licks — General Clarke's expedition 
against the M;anii towns — Massacre of McClure's family — Th« 
horrors of Indian assaults throughout the settlements — General 
Harmar's expedition — Defeat of General St. Clair — Gen. Wayne-a 
victory, and a final peace with the Indians. 

Here, in the order of the annals of the country, 
would be the place to present the famous attack of 
Bryant's station, which we have anticipated by an 
anachronism, and given already, in order to present 
the reader with a clear view of a station, and the 
peculiar mode of attack and defence in these border 
wars. The attack upon Bryant's station was made 
by the largest body of Indians that had been seen 
m Kentucky, the whole force amounting at least to 
six hundred men. We have seen that they did not 
decamp until they had suffered a severe loss of their 
warriors. They departed with so much precipita- 
tion as to have left their tents standing, their fires 
burning, and their meat roasting. They took the 
road to the lower Blue Licks. 

Colonel Todd, of Lexington, despatched imme- 
diate intelligence of this attack to Colonel Trigg, 
near Harrodsburgh, and Colonel Boone, who had 
now returned with his family from North Carolina 
to Boonesborough. These men were prompt in 
collecting volunteers in their vicinity. Scarcely 
had the Indians disappeared from Bryant's station, 
before a hundred and sixty-six men were assembled 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 199 

to march in pursuit of nearly triple their number of 
Indians. Besides Colonels Trigg, Todd, and Boone, 
Majors McGary and Ilarland, from the vicinity of 
Harrodsburgh, had a part in this command : A coun- 
cil was held, in which, after considering the dispar- 
ty of numbers, it was still determined to pursue 
the Indians. Such was their impetuosity, that they 
could not be persuaded to wait for the arrival of 
Colonel Logan, who was known to be collecting a 
strong party to join them. 

The march was immediately commenced upon 
their trail. They had not proceeded far before Co- 
lonel Boone, experienced in the habits of Indians 
and the indications of their purposes, announced 
that he discovered marks that their foe was making 
demonstrations of willingness to meet them. He 
observed that they took no pains to conceal their 
route, but carefully took measures to mislead their 
pursuers in regard to their number. Their first 
purpose was indicated hy cutting trees on (heir 
path — the most palpable of all directions as to their 
course. The other was equally concealed by a cau- 
tious concentration of their camp, and by the files 
taking particular care to step in the foot prints of 
their file leaders, so that twenty warriors might be 
numbered from the foot-marks only as one. 

Still no Indians were actually seen, until the par- 
ty arrived on the southern bank of the Licking, at 
the point of the Blue Licks. A body of Indians 
was here discovered, mounting the summit of an op- 
posite hill, moving leisurely, and apparently without 



200 LIPE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

hurry or alarm — retiring slowly from sight, as on a 
common march. 

The party halted. The officers assembled, and 
a general consultation took place, respecting what 
was to be done. The alternatives were, whether it 
was best to cross the Licking at the hazard of an 
engagement with the Indians; or to wait where they 
were, reconnoiter the country, act on the defensive, 
and abide the coming up of Colonel Logan with his 
force. 

Colonels Todd and Trigg, little acquainted w^ith 
the Indians, w^ere desirous to be guided by the judg- 
ment of Colonel Boone. His opinion being called 
for, he gave it with his usual clearness and circum- 
spection. As regarded the number of the enemy, 
his judgment was, that it should be counted from 
three to five hundred. From the careless and lei- 
surely manner of the march of the body, they had 
seen, he was aware, that the main body was near, 
and that the show of this small party was probably, 
with a view to draw on the attack, founded upon 
an entire ignorance of their numbers. With the 
localities of the country about thp Licks, from his 
former residence there, he was perfectly acquaint- 
ed. The river forms, by its curves, an irregular 
ellipsis, embracing the great ridge and buffalo road 
leading from the Licks. Its longest line of bisec- 
tion leads towards Limestone, and is terminated by 
two ravines heading together in a point, and diver- 
ging thence in opposite directions to the river. In 
his view, it was probable that the Indians had 
formed an ambuscade behind these ravines, in a 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 201 

position as advantageous for them as it would be 
dangerous to the party, if they continued their 
march. He advised that the party should divide; 
the one half march up the Licking on the opposite 
side, and crossing at the mouth of a small brarxh, 
called Elk creek, fall over upon the eastern curve 
of the ravine; while the other half should take a 
position favorable for yielding them prompt co-ope- 
ration in case of an attack. He demon-strated, that 
in this way the advantage of position might be 
taken from the enemy, and turned in their favor. 
He was decided and pressing, that if it was deter- 
mined to attack a force superior, before the arrival 
of Colonel Logan, they ought at least to send out 
spies and explore the country before they marched 
the main body over the river. 

This wise counsel of Colonel Boone was perfectly 
accordant with the views of Colonels Todd and 
Trigg, and of most of the persons consulted on the 
occasion. But while they were deliberating. Ma- 
jor McGary, patriotic, no doubt, in his intentions, 
but ardent, rash, hot-headed, and indocile to milita- 
ry rule, guided his horse into the edge of the 
river, raised the war-whoop in Kentucky style, and 
exclaimed, in a voice of gay confidence, "All those 
that are not cowards will follow me; I will show 
them where the Indians are!" Saying this, he 
spurred his horse into the water. One and another, 
under the impulse of such an appeal to their cour- 
age, dashed in after him. The council was thus 
broken up by force. A part caught the rash spirit 
by sympathy. The rest, who were disposed to 



20fi LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 

listen to better counseis, were borne along, and 
tbeir suggestions drowned in the general clamor. 
All counsel and command were at an end. And it 
is thus that manj of the most important events of 
history have been determined. 

The wdiole party crossed the river, keeping 
straight forward in the beaten buffalo road. Ad- 
vanced a little, parties flanked out from the main 
body, as the irregularity and unevenness of the 
ground would allow. The whole body moved on 
in reckless precipitation and disorder, over a sur- 
face covered with rocks, laid bare by the trampling 
of buffaloes, and the washing of the rain of ages. 
Their course led them in front of the high ridge 
which extends for some distance to the left of the 
road. They were decoyed on in the direction of 
one of the ravines of which we have spoken, by the 
reappearance of the party of Indians they had first 
seen. 

The termination of this ridge sloped off in a de 
clivity covered with a thick forest of oaks. The 
ravines were thick set on their banks with small 
timber, or encumbered with burnt wood, and the 
whole area before them had been stripped bare of 
all herbage by the buffaloes that had resorted to 
the Licks. Clumps of soil here and there on the bare 
rock supported a [ew trees, which gave the whole 
of this spot of evil omen a most singular appearance. 
The advance of the party was headed by McGary, 
Harland, and McBride. A party of Indians, as 
Boone had predicted, that had been ambushed in 
the woods here met them. A warm and bloodv 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 203 

action immediately commenced, and the rifles on 
eitlier side did fatal execution. It was discovered 
in a moment that the whole line of" the ravine con- 
cealed Indians, who, to the number of thrice that 
of their foes, rushed upon them. Colonels Todd 
and Trigg, whose position had been on the right, 
by the movement in crossing, were thrown in the 
rear. They fell in their places, and the rear was 
turned. Between twenty and thirty of these brave 
men had already paid the forfeit of their rashness, 
when a retreat commenced under the edge of the 
tomahawk, and the whizzing of Indian bullets. 
When the party first crossed the river all were 
mounted. Many had dismounted at the commence 
ment of the action. Others engaged on horseback. 
On the retreat, some were fortunate enough to re- 
cover their horses, and fled on horseback. Others 
retreated on foot. From the point where the en- 
gagement commenced to the Licking river was 
about a mile's distance. A high and rugged cliff 
environed either shore of the river, which sloped off 
to a plain near the Licks. The ford was narrow, 
and the water above and below it deep. Some 
were overtaken on the way, and fell under the tom- 
ahawk. But the greatest slaughter was at the river. 
Some were slain in crossing, and some on either 
shore. 

A singular spectacle was here presented in the 
case of a m^n by the name of Netherland, w^ho had 
beCii derided for his timidity. Ke was mounted 
on a fleet and powerful horse, the back of which 
he had never left for a moment. He was one of 



304 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

the first to recross the Licking. Finding himself 
safe upon the opposite shore, a sentiment of sympa- 
thy came upon him as he looked hack and took a 
survey of the scene of murder going on in the river 
and on its shore. Many had reached the river in 
a state of famtness and exhaustion, and the Indians 
were still cutting them down. Inspired with the 
feeling of a commander, he cried out in a loud and 
authoritative voice, "Halt! Fire on the Indians. 
Protect the men in the river." The call was obey- 
ed. Ten or twelve men instantly turned, fired on 
the enemy, and checked their pursuit for a moment, 
thus enabling some of the exhausted and wounded 
fugiliives to evade the tomahawk, already uplifted to 
destroy them. The brave and benevolent Rey- 
nolds, whose reply to Girtj^ has been reported, re- 
linquished his own horse to Colonel Robert Patter- 
son, who was infirm from former wounds, and was 
retreating on foot. He thus enabled that veieran 
to escape. While thus signalizing his disinterested 
intrepidity, he fell himself into the hands of the In- 
dians. The party that took him consisted of three. 
Two whites passed him on their retreat. Two of 
the Indians pursued, leaving him under the guard of 
the third. His captor stooped to tie his moccasin, 
and he sprang away from him and escaped. It is 
supposed that one-fourth of the men engaged in this 
action were commissioned officers. The w^hole 
number engaged was one hundred and seventy-six. 
Of these, sixty v/ere slain, and eight made prson- 
ers. Among the most distinguished names of those 
^ho fell, were those of Colonels Todd and Trigg, 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 205 

Majors Harland and Bulger, Captains Gordon and 
McBridc, and a son of Colonel Boone. The loss 
of the savages has never been ascertained. It could 
not have equalled that of the assailants, though some 
supposed it greater. This sanguinary ixfXAr took 
place August 19, 1782. 

Colonel Logan, on ariving at Bryant's «?tation, 
with a force of three hundred men, found the troop? 
had already marched. lie made a rapid advance 
in hopes to join them before they should have mei 
with the Indians. He came up with the survivors, 
on their retreat from their ill-fated contest, not far 
from Bryant's station. He determined to pursue 
his march to the battle ground to bury the dead, i[ 
he could not avenge their fall. He was joined 
bj many friends of the killed and missing, from 
Lexington and Bryant's station. They reached the 
battle ground on the 25th. It presented a heart- 
rending spectacle. Where so lately had arisen the 
shouts of the robust and intrepid woodsmen, and the 
sharp yell of the savages, as they closed in the mur- 
derous contest, the silence of the wide forest was 
now unbroken, except by birds of prey, as they 
screamed and sailed ovo-r the carnage. The heat 
was so excessive, and the bodies were so changed 
by it and the hideous gashes and mangling of the 
Indian tomahawk and knife, that friends could no 
longer recognize their dearest relatives. They per- 
formed the sad rights of sepulture as they might, 
upon the rocky ground. 

The Indian forces that had fought at the Blue 

Licks, in the exultation of victory and revenge, re- 
18 



206 LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 

turned homeward with their scalps. Those from 
the north — and they constituted the greater num- 
bers — returned quietly. The western bands took 
their route through Jeffercon county, in hopes to 
add more scalps to the number of their trophies. 
Colonel Floyd led out a force to protect the coun- 
try. They marched through the region on Salt 
river, and saw no traces of Indians. They disper 
sed on their return. The greater number of them 
reached their station, and laid down, fatigued and 
exhausted, without any precaution against a foe. 
The Indians came upon them in this predicament 
in the night, and killed several women and children. 
A few escaped under the cover of the darkness. A 
woman, taken prisoner that night, escaped from her 
savage captors by throwing herself into the bushes, 
while they passed on. She wandered about the 
woods eighteen days, subsisting only on wild fruits, 
and was then found and carried to Lynn's station. 
She survived the extreme state of exhaustion in 
which she was discovered. Another woman, taken 
with four children, at the same time, was carried to 
Detroit. 

The terrible blow which the savages had struck 
At the Blue Licks, excited a general and immediate 
purpose of retaliation through Kentucky. General 
Clarke was appointed commander-in-chief, and Col- 
onel Logan next under him in command of the ex- 
pedition, to be raised for that purpose. The forces 
were to rendezvous at Licking. The last of Sep- 
tember, 1782, General Clarke, with one thousand 
men, marched from the present site of Cincinnati, 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONC. 207 

for the Indian towns on the Miami. They fell in 
on their route with the camp of Simon Girty, who 
would have been completely surprised with his In- 
dians, had not a straggling savage espied the ad- 
vance, and reported it to them just in season to en- 
able them to scatter in every direction. They soon 
spread the intelligence that an army from Kentucky 
was marching upon their town's. 

As the army approached the towns on their route, 
they found that the inhabitants had evacuated them, 
and fled into the woods. All the cabins at Chilli 
cothe, Piqua, and Willis were burned. Some 
skirmishing took place, however, in which five In- 
dians were killed, and seven made prisoners, with- 
out any loss to the Kentuckians, save the wounding 
of one man, which afterwards proved mortal. One 
distinguished Indian surrendered himself, and was 
aftenvards inhumanly murdered by one of the troops, 
to the deep regret and mortification of Genera]^ 
Clarke. 

In October, 1785, Mr. McClurc and family, in 
company with a number of other families, were 
assailed on Skegg's creek. Six of the family were 
killed, and Mrs. McClure, a child, and a number of 
other persons made prisoners. The attack took 
place in the niglit. The circumstances of the cap- 
ture of Mrs. McClure, furnish an affecting incident 
illustrating the invincible force of natural tender- 
nesss. She had concealed herself, with her foui- 
children, in the brush of a thicket, which, together 
with the darkness, screened her from observation. 
Had she chosen to have left her infant behind, she 



208 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

might have escaped. But she grasped it, and held 
it to her bosom, although aware that its shrieks 
would betray their covert. The Indians, guided to 
the spot by its cries, killed the three larger children, 
and took her and her infant captives. The unfor- 
tunate and bereaved mother was obliged to accom- 
pany their march on an untamed and unbroken 
horse. 

Intelhgence of these massacres and cruelties cir- 
culated rapidly. Captain Whitley immediately 
collected twenty-one men from the adjoining sta 
tions, overtook, and killed two of these savages, re- 
took the desolate mother, her babe, and a negro 
servant, and the scalps of the six persons whom 
they had killed. Ten days afterwards, another 
party of immigrants, led by Mr. Moore, were at 
tacked, and nine of their number killed. Captain 
Whitley pursued the perpetrators of this bloody act, 
with thirty men. On the sixth day of pursuit 
through the wilderness, he came up with twenty In 
dians, clad in the dresses of those whom they had 
slain. They dismounted and dispersed in the woods 
though not until three of them were killed. The 
pursuers recovered eight scalps, and all the plunde: 
which the Indians had collected at the late massacre 

An expedition of General Clarke, with a thou, 
sand men, against the Wabash Indians, failed in 
consequence of the impatience and discouragement 
of his men from want of pros^isions. Colonel Logan 
was more successful in an expedition against the 
Shawnese Indians on the Scioto. He surprised one 



lilFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 



209 



of the towns, and killed a number of the warriors, 
and took some prisoners. 

In October, 1785, the General Government con- 
voked a meeting of all the Lake and Ohio tribes 
to meet at the mouth of the Great Miami. The In- 
dians met the summons with a moodj indifference 
and neglect, alleging the continued aggressions of 
the Kentuckians as a reason for refusing to comply 
with the summons. 

The horrors of Indian assault were occasionally 
felt in every settlement. We select one narrative 
in detail, to convey an idea of Indian hostiUty on 
the one hand, and the manner in which it was met 
on the other. A family lived on Coope's run, in 
Bourbon county, consisting of a mother, two sons of 
a mature age, a widowed daughter, with an infant 
in her arms, two grown daughters, and a daughter 
of ten years. The house was a double cabin. The 
two grown daughters and the smaller girl were in 
one division, and the remainder of the family in the 
other. 'At evening twiUght, a knocking was heard 
at the door of the latter division, asking in good 
English, and the customary western phrase, "Who 
keeps house?" As the sons went to open the door, 
the mother forbade them, affirming that the persons 
claiming admittance were Indians. The young 
men sprang to their guns. The Indians, finding 
themselves refused admittance at that door, made 
an effort at the opposite one. That door they soon 
beat open with a rail, and endeavored to take the 
three girls prisoners. The little girl sprang away, 
and miffht have escaped from them in the darkness 
18* 



210 LIFE OF DANIEl, HOOTS E. 

and the woods. But the forlorn child, under the 
natu-al impulse of instinct, ran for th^ other doer 
and cried for help. The brothers withir., it may be 
supposed, would wish to go forth and* protect the 
feeble and terrified waller. The mother, taking a 
broader view of expedience and duty, forbade them. 
They soon hushed the cries of the distracted child 
by the merciless tomahawk. While a part of the 
Indians were engaged in murdering this child, and 
another in confining one of the grown girls that 
they had made captive, the third heroically defend- 
ed herself with a knife, which she was using at a 
loom at the moment of attack. The intrepidity she 
put forth was unavailing. She killed one Indian, 
and was herself killed by another. The Indians, 
meanwhile, having obtained possession of one half 
the house, fired it. The persons shut up in the 
other half had now no other alternative^ than to be 
consumed in the flames rapidly spreading towards 
them, or to go forth and expose themselves to the 
murderous tomahawks, that had already laid three 
of the family in their blood. The Indians stationed 
themselves in the dark angles of the fence, where, 
by the bright glare of the flames, they could see 
every thing, and yet remain themselves unseen. 
Here they could make a sure mark of all that should 
escape from within. One of the sons took charge 
of his aged and infirm mother, and the other of his 
widowed sister and her infant. The brothers emer- 
ged from the burning ruins, separated, and endeav- 
ored to spring over the fence. The mother was shot 
dead as her son was piously aiding her over the 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 211 

fence. The other brother was killed as he was 
gallantly defending his sister. The widowed sister, 
her infant, and one of the brothers escaped the 
massacre, and alarmed the settlement. Thirty men, 
commanded by Colonel Edwards, arrived next 
day to witness the appalling spectacle presented 
around the smoking ruins of this cabin. Conside- 
rable snow had fallen, and the Indians were obliged 
to leave a trail, which easily indicated their path. 
In the evening of that day, they came upon the ex- 
piring body of the young woman, apparently mur- 
dered but a few moments before their arrival. The 
Indians had been premonished of their pursuit by 
the barking of a dog that followed them. They 
overtook and killed two of the Indians that had 
staid behind, apparently as voluntary victims to se- 
cure the retreat of the rest. 

To prevent immigrants from reaching the coun- 
try, the Indians infested the Ohio river, and con- 
cealed themselves in small parties at different points 
from Pittsburgh to Louisville, where they laid in 
ambush and fired upon the beats as they passed. 
They frequently attempted by false signals to decoy 
the boats ashore, and in several instances succeeded 
by these artifices in capturing and murdering whole 
families, and plundering them of their effects. They 
even armed and manned some of the boats and 
scows they had taken, and used them as a kind of 
floating battery, by means of which they killed 
and captured many persons approaching the settltr- 
rnenis. 

The last boac wJiich brought immis^rants to the 



212 MFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

country down the Ohio, that was known to have 
been attacked by the Indians, was assaulted in the 
spring of 1791. This circumstance gives it a claim 
to be mentioned in this place. It was commanded 
by Captain Hubhel, and brouglit immigrants from 
Vermont. The whole number of men, women, and 
children amounted to twenty persons. These per- 
sons had been forewarned by various circumstances 
that they noted, that hostile Indians were along the 
shore waiting to attack them. They came up with 
other boats descending the river, and bound in the 
same direction with themselves. They endeavored 
ineffectually to persuade the passengers to join them, 
that they might descend in the strength of numbers 
and union. They continued to move down the river 
alone. The first attempt upon them was a custom- 
ary Indian stratagem. A person, affecting to be 
a white man, hailed them, and requested them to 
lie by, that he might come on board. Finding that 
the boat's crew were not to be allured to the shore 
by this artifice, the Indians put off from the shore 
in three canoes, and attacked the boat. Never was 
a contest of this sort maintained with more despe- 
rate bravery. The Indians attempted to board the 
boat, and the inmates made use of all arms of an- 
noyance and defence. Captain Ilubbel, although 
he had been severely wounded in two places, and 
had the cock of his gun shot off by an Indian fire, 
still continued to discharge his mutilated g an by a 
fire-brand. After a long and desperate conflict, in 
which all the passengers capable of defence but 
four, had been wounded, the Indians paddled off 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 213 

their canoes to attack the boats left behind. They 
were successful against the first boat they assailed. 
The boat yielded to them without opposition. They 
killed the Captain and a boy, and took the women 
on board prisoners. Making a screen of these un- 
fortunate women, by exposing them to the tire of 
Captain Hubbel's boat, they returned to the assault. 
It imposed upon him the painful alternative, either 
to yield to the Indians, or to fire into their canoes 
at the hazard of kilHng the women of their own 
people. But the intrepid Captain remarked, that if 
these women escaped their fire, it would probably 
be to suffer a more terrible death from the savages. 
Fie determined to keep up his fire, even on these 
Imrd conditions; and the savages were beaten off a 
pccond time. In the course of the engagement, the 
boat, left to itself, had floated with the current near 
the north shore, where four or five hundred Indians 
were collected, who poured a shower of balls upon 
the boat. All the inmates could do, was to avoid 
exposure as much as possible, and exercise their pa- 
tience until the boat should float past the Indian 
fire. One of the inmates of the boat, seeing, as it 
slowly drifted on, a fine chance for a shot at an In- 
dian, althougjh warned against it, could not resist the 
temptation of taking his chance. He raised his 
head to take aim, and was instantly shot dead. When 
the boat had drifted beyond the reach of the Indian 
fire, but two of the nine fighting men on board were 
found unhurt. Two were killed, and two mortally 
wounded. The noble courage of a boy on board 
deserves to be recorded. When the boat was now 



214 LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 

in a place of safety, he requested his friends to ex- 
tract a ball that had Iodised in the skin of his fore- 
head. When this bal! had been extracted, he re- 
quested them to take out a piece of bone that had 
been fractured in hi elbow by another shot. When 
asked by his mother why he had not complained or 
made known his suffering during the engagement, he 
coolly replied, intimating that there was noise enough 
without his, that the Captain had ordered the people 
to make no noise. 

All attempts of the General Government to pa- 
cify the Indians, having proved ineffectual, an expe- 
dition was planned against the hostile tribes north- 
west of the Ohio. The object was to bring the 
Indians to a general engagement; or, if that might 
not be, to destroy their establishments on the wa- 
ters of the Scioto and the Wabash. General Har- 
mar was appointed to the command of this expe- 
dition. Major Hamtranck, with a detachment, was 
to make a diversion in his favor up the Wabash, 

On the 13th of September, 1791, General Har- 
mar marched from Fort Washington, the present 
site of Cincinnati, with three hundred and twenty 
regulars, and effected a junction with the militia of 
Pennsylvania and Kentucky, which hs^d advanced 
twenty-five miles in front. The whole force amount- 
ed to one thousand four hundred and fifty-three men. 
Col. Hardin, who commanded the Kentucky militia, 
was detached with six bundled men, chiefly militia, 
to reconnoiter. On his approach to the Indian set- 
tlements, the Indians set fire to their villages and fled, 
In order, if possible, to overtake them, be was de 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 



triched with a smaller force, that could be moved 
more rapidly. It consisted of two hundred and ten 
men. A small party of Indians met and attacked 
them; and the greater part of the militia behaved 
badly, — leaving a few brave men, who would not fly, 
to their fate. Twenty-three of the party fell, an.l se- 
ven only made their escape and rejoined the army. 
Notwithstanding this check, the army succeeded so 
far as to reduce the remaining towns to ashes, and 
destroy their provisions. 

On their return to Fort Washington, Gen. Har- 
mar was desirous of wiping off, in another action, tha 
disgrace which public opinion had impressed upon 
his arms. He halted eight miles from Chillicothe, 
and late at night detached Col. Hardin, with orders 
to find the enemy, and bring them to an engage- 
ment. Early in the morning this detachment reached 
the enemy, and a severe engagement ensued. The 
savages fought with desperation. Some of the Ameri- 
can troops shrunk; but the officers conducted with 
great gallantry. Most of them fell, bravely discharg- 
ing their duty. More than fifty regulars and one 
hundred militia, including the brave officers, Fon- 
taine, Willys, and Frothingham, were slain. 

Harmar, in his official account of this affair, claim- 
ed the victory, although the ilmericans seem clearly 
to have had the worst of it. At his request, he was 
tried by a court martial, and honorably acquitted. 
The enemy had suffered so severely, that they 
allowed him to return unmolested to Fort Wash- 
ington. 

The terrors and the annoyance of Indian hostili- 



216 irPK OF DANIEL BOONE. 

ties still hung over the western settlements. The 
call was loud and general from the frontiers, toi 
ample and efticient protection. Congress placed 
the means in the hands of the executive. Major 
General Arthur St. Clair was appointed comman- 
der- in- chief of the forces to be employed in the 
meditated expedition. The objects of it were, to 
destroy the Indian settlements between the Miam- 
ies; to expel them from the country; and establish 
a chain of posts which should prevent their return 
during the war. This army was late in assembUng 
in the vicinity of Fort Washington. They marched 
directly towards the chief establishments of the en 
emy, building and garrisoning in their way the two 
intermediate forts, Hamilton and Jefferson. After 
thf; detachments had been made for these garri- 
sons, the effective force that remained amounted to 
something less than two thousand men. To open a 
road for their march, was a slow and tedious busi- 
ness. Small parties of Indians were often seen hov- 
ering about their march; and some unimporta,nt 
skirmishes took place. As the army approached 
the enemy's country, sixty of the militia deserted in 
a laody. To prevent the influence of such an ex 
ample. Major Hamtranck was detached with a 
regiment in pursuit of the deserters. The armj 
now consisting of one thousand four hundred men 
continued its march. On the third of November 
1792, it encamped fift'^.en miles south of the Miami 
villages. Having been rejoined by Major Ham 
tranck. General St. Clair proposed to march imme 
diately against them. 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE, 217 

Half an hour before sunrise, the mihtia was at- 
tacked by the savages, and fled in the utmost confu- 
sion. They burst through the formed hue of the 
regulars into the camp. Great efforts were made 
by the officers to restore order; but not with the 
desired success. The Indians pressed upon the 
heels of the flying militia, and engaged General 
Butler with great intrepidity. The action became 
warm and general; and the fire of the assailants, 
passing round both flanks of the first hne, in a few 
minutes was poured with equal fury upon the rear. 
The artillerists in the centre were mowed down, 
and the fire was the more galling, as it was directed 
by an invisible enemy, crouching on the ground, or 
concealed behind trees. In this manner they ad- 
vanced towards the very mouths of the cannon; and 
fought with the infuriated fierceness with which 
success always animates savages. Some of the sol- 
diers exhibited mihtary fearlessness, and fought 
with great bravery. Others were timid and dispo- 
sed to fly. With a self-devotion which the occa- 
sion required, the officers generally exposed them- 
selves to the hottest of the contest, and fell in 
great numbers, in desperate efforts to restore the 
battle. 

The commanding general, though he had been 
for some time enfeebled with severe disease, acted 
with personal bravery, and delivered his order? 
with judgment and self-possession. A charge was 
made upon the savages with the bayonet: and they 
were driven from their covert with some loss, a 
distance of four hundred yards. But as soon aa the 
19 



218 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

charge was suspended, they returned to the attack. 
General Butler was mortally wounded; the left of 
the right wing broken, and the artillerists killed 
almost to a man. The guns were seized and the 
camp penetrated by the enemy. A desperate 
charge was headed by Colonel Butler, although he 
was severely wounded, and the Indians were again 
driven from the camp, and the artillerj^ recovered. 
Several charges were repeated with partial success. 
The enemy only retreated, to return to the charge, 
flushed with new ardor. The ranks of the troops 
were broken, and the men pressed together in 
crowds, and were shot down without resistance. A 
retreat was all that remained, to save the remnant 
of the army. Colonel Darke was ordered to charge 
a body of savages that intercepted their retreat. 
Major Clark, with his battalion, was directed to 
cover the rear. These orders were carried intc 
effect, and a most disorderly retreat commenced. 
A pursuit was kept up four miles, when, fortunately 
for the surviving Americans, the natural greediness 
of the savage appetite for plunder, called back the 
victorious Indians to the camp, to divide the spoils. 
The routed troops continued their flight to fort Jef- 
ferson, throwing away their arms on the road. The 
wounded were left here, and the army retired upon 
fort Washington. 

In this fatal battle, fell thirty-eight commissioned 
officers, and five hundred and ninety-three non-com- 
missioned officers and privates. Twenty-one com- 
missioned officers, many of whom afterwards died of 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 



219 



their wounds, and two hundred and forty-two non- 
commissioned officers and privates were wounded. 

The savage force, in this fatal engagement, was 
led by a Mississago chief, who had been trained to 
war under the British, during the revolution. So 
superior was his knowledge of tactics, that the In- 
dian chiefs, though extremely jealous of him, yielded 
the entire command to him; and he arranged and 
fought the battle with great combination of military 
skill. Their force amounted to four thousand; and 
they stated the Americans killed, at six hundred and 
twenty, and their own at sixty-five; but it was un- 
doubtedly much greater. They took seven pieces of 
cannon and two hundred oxen, and many horses. 
The chief, at the close of the battle, bade the In- 
dians forbear the pursuit of the Americans, as he 
gaid they had killed enough. 

General Scott, with one thousand mounted volun- 
teers from Kentucky, soon after marched against a 
party of the victors, at St. Clair's fatal field. He 
found the Indians rioting in their plunder, riding the 
oxen in the glee of triumph, and acting as if the 
whole body was intoxicated. General Scott imme- 
diately attacked them. The contest was short but 
decisive. The Indians had two hundred killed on 
the spot. The cannon and military stores remain- 
ing, were retaken, and the savages completely rout- 
ed. The loss of the Kentuckians was inconsiderable. 

The reputation of the government was now com- 
mitted in the fortunes of the war. Three additional 
regiments were directed to be raised. On the mo- 
tion in congress for raising these regiments, there 



220 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

was an animated, and even a bitter debate. It was 
urged on one hand, that the expense of such a force 
would involve the necessity of severe taxation; that 
too much power was thrown into the hands of the 
president; that the war had been badly managed, 
and ought to have been entrusted to the militia of 
the west, under their own officers; and with more 
force they urged that no success could be of any 
avail, so long as the British held those posts within 
our acknowledged limits, from which the savages 
were supplied with protection, shelter, arms, advice, 
and instigation to the war. 

On the other hand, the justice of the cause, as a 
war of defence, and not of conquest, was unques- 
tionable. It was proved, that between 1783 and 
1790, no less than one thousand five hundred peo- 
ple of Kentucky had been massacred by the sava- 
ges, or dragged into a horrid captivity; and that the 
frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia had sutFered 
a loss not much less. It was proved that every ef- 
fort had been made to pacify the savages without 
effect. They showed that in 1790, when a treaty 
was proposed to the savages at the Miami, they first 
refused to treat, and then asked thirty days for deli- 
beration. It was granted. In the interim, they 
stated that not less than one hundred and twenty 
persons had been killed and captured, and several 
prisoners roasted alive; at the term of which hor 
rors, they refused any answer at all to the proposi 
tion to treat. Various other remarks were m.ade in 
defence of the bill. It tried the strength of parties 
in coiigress, and was finally carried. 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONK. 221 

General St. Clair resigned, and Major General 
Anthony Wayne was appointed to succeed hirri. 
This officer commanded the confidence of the wes- 
tern people, who confided in that reckless bravery, 
which had long before procured him the appellation 
of "Mad x\nthony.*' There was a powerful party 
who still affected to consider this war unnecessary , 
and every impediment was placed in the way of its 
success, which that party could devise. To prove to 
them that the government was still disposed to peace, 
two excellent officers and valuable men, Col. liar- 
din, and Major Truman, were severally despatched 
with propositions of peace. They were both mur- 
dered by the savages. These unsuccessful attempts 
at negotiation, and the difficulties and delays natu- 
rally incident to the preparation of such a force, to- 
gether with the attempts that had been made in con- 
gress, to render the war unpopular, had worn away 
60 much time that the season for operations for the 
year had almost elapsed. But as soon as the nego- 
tiations had wholly failed, the campaign was opened 
with as much vigor as the nature of the case would 
admit. The general was able, however, to do no 
more this autumn, than to advance into the forest 
towards the country of the savages, six miles in ad- 
vance of fort Jefferson. He took possession of the 
ground on which the fatal defeat of St. Clair had 
taken place, in 1792. He here erected a fortifica 
tion, with the appropriate name of Fort Recovery. 
His principal camp was called Greenville. 

In Kentucky, meanwhile, many of the people 

clamored against these measures, and loudly insist- 
19* 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

ed that the war ought to be carried on by militia, 
to be commanded by an officer taken from their 
state. It was beheved, too, by the executive, that 
the British government, by retaining their posts 
within our Hmits, and by various other measures, at 
least countenanced the Indians in their hostilities. 
That government took a more decisive measure 
early in the spring. A British detachment from 
Detroit, advanced near fifty miles south of that 
place, and fortified themselves on the Miami of the 
lakes. In one of the numerous skirmishes which 
took place between the savages and the advance of 
General Wayne, it was affirmed, that the British 
were mingled with the Indians. 

On the 8th of August, 1794, General Wayne 
reached the confluence of the Au Glaize, and the 
Miami of the lakes. The richest and most exten* 
sive settlements of the western Indians were at this 
place. It was distant only about thirty miles from 
the post on the Miami, which the British had re- 
cently occupied. The whole strength of the ene- 
my, amounting to nearly two thousand warriors, 
was collected in the vicinity of that post. The 
regulars of General Wayne were not much inferior 
in numbers. A reinforcement of one thousand one 
hundred mounted Kentucky militia, commanded by 
General Scott, gave a decided superiority to the 
American force. The general was well aware that 
the enemy were ready to give him battle, and he 
ardently desired it. But in pursuance of the set- 
tled policy of the United States, another effi^rt was 
made for the attainment of peace, without the shed- 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 223 

ding of blood. The savages were exhorted by 
those who were sent to them, no longer to follow 
the counsels of the bad men at the foot of the Ra- 
pids, who urged them on to the war, but had nei- 
ther the power nor the inclination to protect them; 
that to listen to the propositions of the government 
of the United States, would restore them to their 
homes, and rescue them from famine. To these 
propositions they returned only an evasive answer. 

On the 20th of August, the army of General 
Wayne marched in columns, A select battalion, 
under Major Price, moved as a reconnoitering force 
m front. After marching five miles, he received so 
heavy a fire from the savages, concealed as usual, 
that he was compelled to retreat. The savages 
had chosen their ground with great judgment 
They had moved into a thick wood, in advance of 
the British works, and had taken a position behind 
fallen timber, prostrated by a tornado. This ren- 
dered their position almost inaccessible to horse. 
They were formed in three regular lines, according 
to Indian custom, very much extended in front. 
Their first effort was to turn the left flank of the 
American army. 

The American legion was ordered to advance 
with trailed arms, and rouse the enemy from his 
covert at the point of the bayonet, and then deliv- 
er its fire. The cavalry, led by Captain Campbell, 
was ordered to advance between the Indians and 
ihe river, where the wood permitted them to pene- 
trate, and charge their left flank. General Scott, 
at the head of the mounted volunteers, was com- 



224 LIFE OP DANIEL BOOPTE. 

mandcd to make a considerable circuit and turn 
their right. These, and all the complicated orders 
of General Wajne, were promptly executed. But 
such was the impetuosity of the charge made by 
the first line of infantry, so entirely was the enemy 
broken by it, and so rapid was the pursuit, that 
only a small part of the second line, and of the 
mounted volunteers could take any part in the ac- 
tion. In the course of an hour, the savages were 
driven more than two miles, and within gun-shot of 
the British fort. 

General Wayne remained three days on the field 
of battle, reducing the houses and corn-fields, above 
and below the fort, and some of them within pistol 
shot of it,, to ashes. The houses and stores of Col, 
M'Kee, an English trader, whose great influence 
among the savages had been uniformly exerted for 
the continuance of the war, was burned among the 
rest. Correspondence upon these points took place 
between General Wayne and Major Campbell, who 
commanded the British fort. That of General 
Wayne was sufficiently firm; and it manifested that 
the latter only avoided hostilities with him, by ac- 
quiescing in the destruction of British property 
within the range of his guns. 

On the 28th the army returned to Au Glaize, de- 
stroying all the villages and corn within fifty miles 
of the river. In this decisive battle, the American 
loss, in killed and wounded, amounted to one hun- 
dred and seven, including officers. Among those 
that fell, were Captain Campbell and Lieutenant 
Towles. The general bestowed great and merited 



LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 



2^ 



praise, for their bravery and promptitude in this 
affair, to all his troops. 

The hostility of the Indians still continuing, the 
whole country was laid waste; and forts were erect- 
ed in the heart of their settlements, to prevent their 
return. This seasonable victory, and this deter- 
mined conduct on the part of the United States, 
rescued them from a general war with all the na- 
tions north-west of the Ohio. The Six Nations 
had manifested resentments, which were only ap- 
peased for the moment, by the suspension of a 
settlement, which Pennsylvania was making at 
Presqu' Isle, within their alleged limits. The issue 
of this battle dissipated the clouds at once which 
had been thickening in that quarter. Its influence 
was undoubtedly felt far to the south. The Indian 
inhabitants of Georgia, and still farther to the south 
had been apparently on the verge of a war, and had 
been hardly restrained from hostility by the feeble 
authority of that state. 

No incidents of great importance occurred in 
this quarter, until August 3d, of the next year 
when a definitive treaty was concluded by General 
Wayne, with the hostile Indians north-west of the 
Ohio. By this treaty, the destructive war which 
had so long desolated that frontier, was ended in a 
manner acceptable to the United States. An ac- 
commodation was also brought about with the south- 
ern Indians, notwithstanding the intrigues of their 
Spanish neighbors. The regions of t!ie Mississippi 
valley were opened on all sides to immigration, and 
rescued fjom the dread of Indian hostilities. 



226 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Rejoicings on account of tiie peace — Boone indulges his propensity foi 
hunting — Kentucky increases in population — Some account of thett 
conflicting land titles — Progress of civil improvement destroying the 
range of the hunter — Litigation of land titles — Boone loses his lands- 
Removes from Kentucky to the Kanawha — Leaves the Kanawha and 
goes to Missouri, where he is appointed Commandant. 

The peace which followed the defeat of the north- 
ern tribes of Indians by General Wayne, was most 
grateful to the harassed settlers of the west. The 
news of it was received every where with the most 
lively joy. Every one had cause of gratulation. 
The hardy warriors, whose exploits we have recount- 
ed, felt that they were relieved from the immense 
responsibilities which rested upon them as the guar- 
dians and protectors of the infant settlements. The 
new settlers could now clear their wild lands, and 
cultivate their rich fields in peace — without fearing 
the ambush and the rifles of a secret foe; and the ten- 
ants of the scattered cabins could now sleep in 
safety, and without the dread of being wakened by 
the midnight war-whoop of the savage. Those who 
had been pent up in forts and stations joyfully sal- 
lied forth, and settled wherever the soil and local 
advantages appeared the most inviting. 

Colonel Boone, in particular, felt that a firm and 
resolute perseverance had finally triumphed over ev- 
ery obstacle. That the rich and boundless valleys 
of the great west — the garden of the earth — and 



LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 227 

the paradise of hunters, had been won from the do- 
minion of the savage tribes, and opened as an asy- 
lum for the oppressed, the enterprising, and the free 
of every land. He had travelled in every direction 
through this great valley. He had descended from 
the Alleghanies into the fertile regions of TenneSi- 
sec, and traced the courses of the Cumberland and 
Tennessee rivers. He had wandered with delight 
through the blooming forests of Kentucky. He had 
been carried prisoner by the Indians through the 
wilderness which is now the state of Ohio to the great 
lakes of the north; he had traced the head waters of 
the Kentucky, the Wabash, the Miamies, the Scio- 
to, and other great rivers of the west, and had fol- 
lowed their meanderings to their entrance into the 
Ohio; he had stood upon the shores of this beautiful 
river, and gazed with admiration, as he pursued its 
winding and placid course through endless forests to 
mingle with the Mississippi; he had caught some 
glimmerings of the future, and saw with the prophe- 
tic eye of a patriot, that this great valley must soon 
become the abode of millions of freemen; and his 
heart swelled with joy, and warmed with a trans- 
port which was natural to a mind so unsophisticated 
and disinterested as his. 

Boone rejoiced in a peace which put an end to his 
perils and anxieties, and which now gave him full 
leisure and scope to follow his darling pursuit of 
hunting. He had first been led to the country by 
that spirit of the hunter, which in him amounted 
almost to a passion. This propensity may be said to 
be natural tr man. Even in cities and populous 



228 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

places we find men so fond of this pastime that thej 
ransack the cultivated fields and enclosures of the 
farmer, for the purpose of killing the little birds and 
squirrels, which, from their insignificance, have ven- 
tured to take up their abode with civilized man. 
What, then, must have been the feelings of Boone, 
to find himself in the grand theatre of the hunter — 
filled with bufiaioes, deer, bears, wild turkeys, and 
other noble game? 

The free exercise of this darling passion had been 
checked and restrained, ever since the first settle- 
ment of the country, by the continued wars and hos- 
tile incursions of the Indians. The path of the hun- 
ter had been ambushed by the wily savage, e nd he 
seldom ventured beyond the purlieus of his cabin, 
or the station where he resided. He was now free 
to roam in safety through the pathless wilderness — 
to camp out in security whenever he was overtaken 
by night; and to pursue the game wherever it vras 
to be found in the greatest abundance. 

Civilization had not yet driven the primitive ten- 
ants of the forest from their favorite retreats. Most 
of the country was still in a state of nature — unset- 
tled and unappropriated. Few fences or inclosurea 
impeded the free range of the hunter, and very few 
buts and bDunds warned him of his being about to 
trespass upon the private property of some neighbor. 
Herds of buffaloes and deer still fed upon the rich 
cane-brake and rank vegetation of the boundless 
woods, and resorted to the numerous Licks for salt 
and drink. 

Boone now improved this golden opportunity of 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 229 

indulging in his favorite pursuit. He loved tc wan- 
der alone, with his unerring rifle upon his shoulder, 
through the labyrinths of the tangled forests, and 
to rouse the wild beast from his secret lair. There 
was to him a charm in these primeval solitudes 
which suited his peculiar temperament, and he fre- 
quently absented himself on these lonely expedi- 
tions for days together. He never was known to re- 
turn without being loaded with the spoils of the chase. 
The choicest viands and titbits of all the forest- fed 
animals were constantly to be found upon his table. 
Not that Boone was an epicure; far from it. He 
would have been satisfied with a soldier's fare. In 
common with other pioneers of his time, he knew 
what it was to live upon roots and herbs for days 
together. He had suffered hunger and want in all 
its forms without a murmur or complaint. But when 
peace allowed him to follow his profession of a hun- 
ter, and to exercise that tact and superiority which 
so much distinguished him, he selected from the 
abundance and profusion of the game which fell 
victims to his skill, such parts as were most es- 
teemed. His friends and neighbors were also, at 
all times, made welcome to a share of whatever he 
killed. And he continued to live in this primitive 
simplicity — enjoying the luxury of hunting, and of 
roving in the woods, and indulging his generous and 
disinterested disposition towards his neighbors, for 
several years after the peace. 

In the meantime, while Boone had been thus 
courting solitude, and absorbed by the engrossing 

excitement of hunting, the restless spirit of immi- 
2b 



230 IjTFB of DANIEL BOONE. 

gration, and of civil and physical improvement, had 
not been idle. After the peace the tide of popula- 
tion poured into the country in a continual stream^ 
and the busy spirit of civilization was every where 
making inroads into the ancient forests, and en- 
croaching upon the dominions of the hunter. 

In order, however, that the reader may more 
readily comprehend the causes which operated as 
grievances to Boone, and finally led him to aban- 
don Kentucky, and seek a home in regions more 
congenial, it will be necessary to allude to the pro- 
gress made in population, and the civil pohty, and 
incidents attending the settlement of the country. 

The state of Kentucky was not surveyed by the 
government and laid off into sections and townships 
as has been the case with all the lands north of thfe 
Ohio. But the government of Virginia had issued 
land warrants, or certificates, entitHng the holder to 
locate wherever he might choose, the number of 
acres named in the warrant. They also gave to 
actual settlers certain pre-emption rights to such 
lands as they might occupy and improve by building 
a cabin, raising a crop, &c. The holders of these 
warrants, after selecting the land which they inten- 
ded to cover with their titles, were required to enter 
a survey and description of the tracts selected, in the 
Land office, which had been opened for the purpose, 
to be recorded there, for the information of others, 
and to prevent subsequent holders of warro.nts from 
locating the same lands. Yet notwithstanding these 
precautions, such was the careless manner in which 
these surveys were made, that many illiterate per- 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 23t 

ons, ignorant of the forms of law, and the necessity 
of precision in the specification and descriptions of 
the tracts on which they had laid their warrants, 
nmade such loose and \'ague entries in the land oftice, 
as to afford no accurate information to subsequent 
locators, who frequently laid their warrants on the 
same tracts. It thus happened that the whole or a 
part of almost every tract was covered with differ- 
ent and conflicting titles — forming what have been 
aptly called 'shingle titles' — overlaying and lapping 
upon each other, as shingles do upon the roof of a 
building. In this way twice the existing acres of 
land were sold, and the door opened for endless con- 
troversy about boundaries and titles. The following 
copy of an entry may serve as a specimen of the 
vagueness of the lines, huts, and bounds of their 
claims, and as accounting for the flood of litigation 
that ensued, 

"George Smith enters nine hundred acres of land 
on a treasury warrant, lying on the north side of 
Kentucky river, a mile below a creek; beginning 
about twenty poles below a lick; and running down 
the river westwardly, and northwestwardly for 
quantity." 

It will easily be seen that a description, so gene- 
ral and indefinite in its terms, could serve as no 
guide to others who might wish to avoid entering 
the same lands. This defect in providing fcr the 
certainty and safety of land titles, proved a sore evil 
to the state of Kentucky. As these lands increased 
in value and importance, controversies arose as to 
the ownership of almost every tract: and innumerar 



232 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

ble suits, great strife and excitement, prevailed in 
every neighborhood, and continued until within a 
late period, to agitate the whole body of society. 
The legislature of the state, by acts of limitation and 
judicious legislation upon the subject, have finally 
quieted the titles of the actual occupants. 

Among others who made these loose and unfortu 
nate entries, was Daniel Boone. Unaccustomed t<? 
the forms of law and technical precision, he was gui 
ded by his own views of what was proper and requi 
site, and made such brief and general entries, as 
were afterwards held not sufficient to identify the 
land. He had discovered and explored the country 
when it was all one vast wilderness — unoccupied, 
and unclaimed. He and a few other hardy pioneers, 
by almost incredible hardships, dangers, and sacri- 
fices, had won it from the savage foe; and judging 
from his own single and generous mind, he did not 
suppose that question would ever be made of his 
right to occupy such favorite portions as he might 
select and pay for. He did not think it possible that 
any one, knowing these circumstances, could be 
found so greedy or so heartless, as to grudge him the 
quiet and unmolested enjoyment of what he had so 
dearly earned. But in this he was sadly mistaken. 
A set of speculators and interlopers, who, following 
in the train of civilization and wealth, came to enrich 
themselves by monopolizing the rich lands which 
had thus been won for them, and by the aid of legal 
advisers, following all the nice requisitions of the law, 
pounced, among others, upon the lands of our old 
pioneer He was not at first disturbed by these 



LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 233/ 

speculating harpies; and game being plenty, he gav6 
himself little uneasiness about the claims and titles 
to particular spots, so long as he had such vast hunt- 
ing grounds to roam in — which, however, he had 
the sorrow to see daily encroached upon by the new 
settlements of the immigrants. 

But the inroads made by the frequent settlements 
in his accustomed hunting range, were not the only 
annoyances which disturbed the simple habits and 
patriarchal views of Boone. Civilization brought 
along with it all the forms of law, and the complica- 
ted organization of society and civil government, the 
progress of which had kept pace with the increasing 
population. 

As early as 1783, the territory of Kentucky had 
been laid off into three counties, and was that year, 
by law, formed into one District, denominated the 
District of Kentucky. Regular courts of justice 
were organized — log court-houses and log jails 
were erected — judges, lawyers, sheriffs, and juries 
were engaged in the administration of justice — 
money began to circulate — cattle and flocks multi- 
plied — reading and writing schools were commen- 
ced — more wealthy immigrants began to flock to 
tlie country, bringing with them cabinet furniture, 
and many of the luxuries of more civilized life — 
and merchandize began to be wagoned from Phila- 
delphia across the mountains to fort Pitt, now Pitts- 
burgh, from whence it was conveyed in flat boats 
to Mays vi lie and Louisville. 

In 1785 a convention was convoked at Danville, 

who adopted a memorial, addressed to the Lceisla 
20* 



234 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

ture of Virginia, and another to the people of Ken- 
tucky — suggesting the propriety, and reasons for 
erecting tlie new country into an independent state. 
In the discussion of this question parties arose, and 
that warmth and excitement were eUcited, which 
are inseparable from the free and unrestrained dis- 
cussion of public measures. 

In 1786 the legislature of Virginia enacted the 
preliminary provisions for the separation of Ken« 
tucky, as an independent state, provided that Con- 
gress should admit it into the Union. About this 
time another source of party discord was opened in 
agitating debates touching the claims of Kentucky 
and the West to the navigation of the Mississippi. 
The inhabitants were informed by malcontents in 
Western Pennsylvania, that the American Secre- 
tary of State was making propositions to the Span- 
ish minister, to cede to Spain the exclusive right of 
navigation of the Mississippi for twenty-five years. 
This information as might be supposed, created a 
great sensation. It had been felt from the begin- 
ning of the western settlements, that the right to 
the free navigation of the Mississippi was of vital 
importance to the whole western country, and the 
least relinquishment of this right — even for the 
smallest space of time, would be of dangerous pre- 
cedent and tendency. Circulars were addressed 
by the principal settlers to men of influence in the 
nation. But before any decisive measures could 
be taken, Virginia interfered, by instructing her 
representatives in Congress to make strong represen 
tations against the ruinous policy of the measure. 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. "35 



In 1787 commenced the first operations of that 
mighty engine, the press, in the western country. 
Nothing could have been wider from the anticipa- 
tions, perhaps from the wishes of Boone, than this 
progress of things. But in the order of events, the 
ti-ansition of unlettered backwoods emigrants to a 
people with a poUce, and all the engines of civiliza- 
tion was uncommonly rapid. There was no other 
paper within five hundred miles of vhe one now es- 
tabhshed by Mr. Bradford, at Lexington. The po- 
litical heart-burnings and slander that had hitherto 
been transmitted through oral channels, were now 
concentrated for circulation in this gazette. 

In April, 1792, Kentucky was admitted into the 
Union as an independent state; improvements were 
steadily and rapidly progressing, and notwithstand- 
ing the hostility of the Indians, the population of 
the state was regularly increasing until the peace 
which followed the victory of Gen. Wayne. After 
which, as has been observed, the tide of emigration 
poured into the country with unexampled rapidity. 

Litigation iii regard to land titles now began to 
increase, and continued until it was carried to a 
distressing height. Col. Boone had begun to turn 
his attention to the cultivation of the choice tracts 
he had entered; and he looked forward with the 
consohng thought that he had enough to provide 
for a large and rising family, by securing to each 
of his children, as they became of age, a fine plan- 
tation. But in the vortex of htigation which ensued, 
he was not permitted to escape. The speculators 
who had spread their greedy claims over the 



236 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

lands which had been previously located and paid 
for by Boone, relying upon his imperfect entries, 
and some legal flaws in his titles, brought their 
ejectments against him, and dragged him into a 
court of law. He employed counsel, and from 
term to term, was compelled to dance attendance 
at court. Here the old hunter listened to the quib- 
bles — the subtleties, and to him, inexplicable jar- 
gon of the lawyers. His suits were finally decided 
against him, and he was cast out of the possession 
of all, or nearly all the lands which he had looked 
upon as being indubitably his own. The indigna- 
tion of the old pioneer can well be imagined, as he 
saw himself thus stript, by the quibbles and intrica- 
cies of the law, of all the rewards of his exposures, 
labors, sufferings, and dangers in the first settlement 
of Kentucky. He became more than ever disgust- 
ed with the grasping and avaricious spirit — the 
heartless intercourse and technical forms of what is 
called civilized society. 

But having expended his indignation in a tran- 
sient paroxysm, he soon settled back to his custom- 
ary mental complacency and self-possession; and as 
he had no longer any pledge of consequence re- 
maining to him in the soil of Kentucky — and as it 
was, moreover, becoming on all sides subject to the 
empire of the cultivator's axe and plough, he re- 
solved to leave the country. He had witnessed 
with regret the dispersion of the band of pioneers, 
with whom he had hunted and fought, side by side, 
and like a band of brothers, shared every hardship 



LIFE OP DANIEL BOONE. 237 

and every danger; and he sighed for new fields of 
adventure, and the excitement of a hunter's life. 

Influenced by these feelings, he removed from 
Kentucky to the great Kanahwa; where he settled 
near Point Pleasant. He had been informed that 
buffaloes and deer were still to be found in abun- 
dance on the unsettled bottoms of this river, and that 
it was a fine country for trapping. Here he contin- 
ued to reside several years. But he was disap- 
pointed in his expectations of finding game. The 
vicinity of the settlements above and below this un- 
settled region, had driven the buffaloes from the 
country; and though there were plenty of deer, yet 
he derived but little success from his trapping. He 
finally commenced raising stock, and began to turn 
his attention to agriculture. 

While thus engaged, he met with some persons 
who had returned from a tour up the Missouri, who 
described to him the fine country bordering upon 
that river. The vast prairies — the herds of buffa- 
loes — the grizzly bears — the beavers and otters; and 
above all, the ancient and unexplored forests of that 
unknown region, fired his imagination, and produced 
at once a resolve to remove there. 

Accordingly, gathering up such useful articles of 
baggage as were of light carriage, among which his 
trusty rifle was not forgotten, he started with his 
family, driving: his whole stock of cattle along with 
him, on a pilgrimage to this new land of promise. 
He passed through Cincinnati on his way thither in 
1798. Being enquired of as to what had induced 
him to leave all the comforts of home, and so rich 



*J38 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

and flourishing a country as his dear Kentucky, 
which he had discovered, and might almost call his 
own, for the wilds of Missouri? "Too much crowd 
ed," replied he — "too crowded — I want more elbow 
room " He proceeded about forty-live miles above 
St. Louis, and settled in what is now St. Charles 
county. This country being still in the possession 
of the French and Spanish, the ancient laws by 
which these territories were governed were still in 
force there. Nothing could be more simple than 
their whole system of administration. They had no 
constitution, no king, no legislative assemblies, no 
judges, juries, lawyers, or sheriffs. An officer, called 
the Commandant, and the priests, exercised all the 
functions of civil magistrates, and decided the few 
controvejsies which arose among these primitive in 
habitants, who held and occupied many things in 
common. They suffered their ponies, their cattle, 
their swine, and their flocks, to ramble and graze on 
the same common prairies and pastures — having bat 
few fences or inclosures, and possessing but little of 
that spirit of speculation, enterprise, and money-ma- 
king, which has always characterized the Americans. 
These simple laws and neighborly customs suited 
the pecuUar habits and temper of Boone. And as 
his character for honesty, courage, and fidelity fol- 
lowed him there, he was appointed Commandant 
for the district of St. Charles by the Spanish Com- 
mandant. He retained this command, and continued 
to exercise the duties of his office with credit to him- 
self, and to the satisfaction of all concerned, until the 
government of the United States went into effect. 



LrPE OF DANIEL BOONE. 



CHAPTER XV. 



239 



Anecdotef of Colonel Boone, related by Mr. Audubon— A remaukable 
instance of memory. 

As an evidence of the development of backwoods 
skill, and a vivid picture of Daniel Boone, we give 
the following from Mr. Audubon: 

"Daniel Boone, or as he was usually called in the 
Western country, Colonel Boone, happened to spend 
a night under the same roof with me, more than 
twenty years ago. We had returned from a shoot- 
mg excursion, in the course of which his extraor- 
dinary skill in the management of a rifle had been 
fully displayed. On retiring to ttie room appropri- 
ated to that remarkable individual and myself for 
the night, I felt anxious to know more of his exploits 
and adventures than I did, and accordingly took the 
liberty of proposing numerous questions to him. The 
stature and general appearance of this wanderer of 
the western forests, approached the gigantic. His 
chest was broad and prominent; his muscular pow- 
ers displayed themselves in every hmb; his counte- 
nance gave indication of his great courage, enter- 
prise, and perseverance; and when he spoke, the 
very motion of his lips brougnt the impression, 
that whatever he uttered could not be otherwise 
than strictly true. I undressed, whilst he merely 
took off his hunting shirt, and arranged a few folds 
of blankets on the floor; choosing rather to lie there, 
as he observed, than on the softest bed. When we 



S'lO MFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

had both disposed of ourselves, each after his own 
fashion, he related to me the following account of his 
powers of memory, which I lay before you, kind 
reader, in his own words, hoping that the simplicity 
of his style may prove interesting to you. 

"I was once," said he, "on a hunting expedition 
on the banks of the Green river, when the lowei 
parts of this (Kentucky,) were still in the hands ol 
nature, and none but the sons of the soil were look- 
ed upon as its lawful proprietors. We Virginians 
had for some time been waging a war of intru- 
sion upon them, and I, amongst the rest, rambled 
through the woods, in pursuit of their race, as 1 
now would follow the tracks of any ravenous ani- 
mal. The Indians outwitted me one dark night, 
and I was as unexpectedly as suddenly made a pris- 
oner by them. The trick had been managed with 
great skill; for no sooner had I extinguished the fire 
of my camp, and laid me down to rest, in full 
security, as I thought, than I felt myself seized hy an 
indistinguishable number of hands, and was imme- 
diately pmioned, as if about to be led to the scaffold 
for execution. To have attempted to be refractory, 
would have proved useless and dangerous to my life; 
and I suffered myself to be removed from my carmp 
to theirs, a few miles distant, without uttering even a 
word of complaint. You are aware, I dare say, that 
to act in this manner, was the best policy, as you un- 
derstand that by so doing, I proved to the Indians at 
once, that I was born and bred as fearless of death 
as any of themselves. 

When we reached the camp, great rejoicings were 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 241 

exhibited. Two squaws, and a few papooses, ap- 
peared particularly delighted at the sight of me, and 
I was assured, bj very unequivocal gestures and 
words, that, on the morrow, the mortal enemy of the 
Red-skins would cease to live. I never opened my 
lips, but was busy contriving some scheme which 
might enable me to give the rascals the slip before 
dawn. The women immediately fell a searching 
about my hunting shirt for whatever they might think 
valuable, and fortunately for me, soon found my 
flask, filled with Monongahela, (that is, reader, strong 
whisky.) A terrific grin was exhibited on theii 
murderous countenances, while my heart throbbec' 
with joy at the anticipation of their intoxication. 
The crew immediately began to beat their bellies 
and sing, as they passed the bottle from mouth to 
mouth. How often did I wish the flask ten tim.es its 
size, and filled with aquafortis! I observed that the 
squaws drank more freely than the warriors, and 
again my spirits were about to be depressed, when 
the report of a gun was heard at a distance. The 
Indians all jumped on their feet. The singing and 
drinking were both brought to a stand; and I saw 
with inexpressible joy, the men walk off to some dis 
tance, and talk to the squaws. I knew that they 
were consulting about me, and I foresaw, that in a 
few moments the warriors would go to discover the 
cause of the gun having been fired so near their 
camp. I expected the squaws would be left to guard 
rae. Well, sir, it was just so. They returned; the 
siien took up their guns and walked away. The 

squaws sat down again, and in less than five minutes 
21 



243 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

thej had my bottle up to their dirty mouths, gurg- 
ling down their throats the remains of the whiskj. 

"With what pleasure did I see them becoming more 
and more drunk, until the liquor took such hold of 
them that it was quite impossible for these women 
to be of any service. They tumbled down, rolled 
about, and began to snore; when I, having no other 
chance of freeing myself from the cords that fastened 
me, rolled over and over towards the fire, and after 
a short time burned them asunder. I rose on my 
feet; stretched my stiffened sinews; snatched up my 
rifle, and, for once in my life, spared that of Indians. 
I now recollect how desirous I once or twice felt to 
lay open the skulls of the wretches with my toma- 
hawk; but when I again thought upon killing beings 
unprepared and unable to defend themselves, it 
looked like murder without need, and I gave up the 
idea. 

"But, sir, I felt determined to mark the spot, and 
walking to a thrifty ash sapling, I cut out of it three 
large chips, and ran off. I soon reached the river; 
soon crossed it, and threw myself deep into the 
cane-brakes, imitating the tracks of an Indian with 
my feet, so that no chance might be left for thos* 
from whom I had escaped to overtake me. 

"It is now nearly twenty years since this happen- 
ed, and more than five since I left the whites' settle- 
ments, which I might probably never have visited 
again, had I not been called on as a witness in a 
law-suit that was pending in Kentucky.; and which, 
I really believe, would never have been settled^ had 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 



345 



I not come forward, and established the beginning 
of a certain boundary line. This is the story, sir. 

u]\|r^ moved from old Virginia into Ken- 
tucky, and having a large tract granted to him in 
the new state, laid claim to a certain parcel of land 
adjoining Green river, and as chance would have it, 
he took for one of his corners the very ash tree on 
which I had made my mark, and finished his survey 
of some thousands of acres, beginning, as it is ex- 
pressed in the deed, "at an ash marked by three 
distinct notches of the tomahawk of a white man." 

"The tree had grown much, and the bark had cov- 
ered the marks; but, some how or other, Mr. 

heard from some one all that I have already said to 
you, and thinking that I might remember the spot 
alluded to in the deed, but which was no longer dis- 
coverable, wrote for me to come and try at least to 
find the place on the tree. His letter mentioned, 
that all my expenses should be paid ; and not caring 
much about once more going back to Kentucky, I 
started and met Mr. . After some conversa- 
tion, the affair with the Indians came to my recol- 
lection. I considered for a while, and began to 
think that after all, I could find the very spot, as well 
as the tree, if it was yet standing. 

4<Mr. and I mounted our horses, and off we 

went to the Green river bottoms. After some diffi- 
culties, for you must be aware, sir, that great changes 
had taken place in these woods, I found at last the 
spot where I had crossed the river, and waiting foi 
the moon to rise, made for the course in which I 
thought the ash tree grew. On approaching th« 



244 LIFE OF D\NIEL BOONE. 

place, I felt as if the Indians were there still, and as 

if I was still a prisoner among them. Mr. 

and I camped near what I conceived the spot, and 
waited till the return of daj. 

*'At the rising of the sun I was on foot, and after 
a good deal of musing, thought that an ash tree 
then in sight must be the very one on which I had 
made my mark. I felt as if there could be no 

doubt of it, and mentioned my thought to Mr. . 

"Well, Colonel Boone," said he, "if you think so, 1 
hope it may prove true, but we must have some 
witnesses; do you stay hereabout, and I will go 
and bring some of the settlers whom I know." I 

agreed. Mr. trotted off, and I, to pass the 

time, rambled about to see if a deer was still living 
in the land. But ah! sir, what a wonderful dilFer- 
ence thirty years makes in the country! Why, at 
the time when I was caught by the Indians, you 
would not have walked out in any direction for 
more than a mile without shooting a buck or a bear. 
There were then thousands of buffaloes on the hills 
in Kentucky; the land looked as if it would never 
become poor; and to hunt in those days was a plea- 
sure indeed. But when I was left to myself on the 
banks of Green river, I dare say for the last time in 
my life, a few signs only of deer were to be seen, and 
as to a deer itself, I saw none. 

"Mr. returned, a. companied by three gentle- 
men. They looked upon me as if I had been Wash- 
mgton himself, and walked to the ash tree which 1 
now called my own, as if in quest of a long lost trea- 
sure. I took an axe from one of them and cut a 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 245 

few chips off the bark. Still no signs were to be 
seen. So I cut again, until I thought it time to be 
cautious, and I scraped and worked away with mj 
butcher knife, until I did come to where my toma- 
hawk had left an impression in the wood. Wc now 
went regularly to work, and scraped at the tree 
with care, until three hacks, as plain as any tiiree 

notches ever were, could be seen. Mr. and 

tlie other gentlemen were astonished, and, I must 
allow, I was as much surprised as pleased, myself. 
I made affidavit of this remarkable occurrence in the 

presence of these gentlemen. Mr. gained his 

cause. I left ijfieen river, forever, and came to 
where we now are; and, sir, I wish you a good 
night'^ 

21* 



246 LIFE OF DANIEL BOON£» 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Progress of improvement in Missouri — Old age of Boone — Death of 
his wife — He goes to reside with his son — His death — His personal 
appearance and character. ' 

Soon after the purchase of Missouri from the 
French by our government, the American system of 
government began to be introduced there. Ameri- 
can laws, American courts, and the whole Ameri- 
can system of pohtics and jurisprudence spread 
over the country, changing, by degrees, the features 
of civil society; infusing life and vigor into the 
body politic, and introducing that restless spirit of 
speculation and improvement which characterise 
the people of the United States. The tide of emi 
gration once more swept by the dwelling of Daniel 
Boone, driving off the game and monopolizing the 
rich hunting grounds. His office of commandant 
was merged and lost in the new order of things. 
He saw that it was in vain to contend with fate; 
that go where he would, American enterprize 
seemed doomed to follow him, and to thwart all his 
schemes of backwoods retirement. He found him- 
self once more surrounded by the rapid march of 
improvement, and he accommodated himself, as 
well as he might, to a state of things which he could 
not prevent. He had the satisfaction of seeing his 
children well settled around him, and he spent his 
time in hunting and exploring the new country. 

Meantime, old age began to creep upon him by 



LIFE OP DANIEL BOONF.. 2^47 

degrees, and he had the mortitication to find him- 
self surpassed in his own favorite pursuit. The 
sharp shooters^ and younger hunters could scour the 
forests with fleeter pace, and bring down the bears 
and buffaloes with surer aim, than his time- worn 
frame, and impaired vision would allow. Even the 
French, with their fleets of periogues, ascended the 
Missouri to points where his stiffened sinews did 
not permit him to follow. These volatile and bab- 
bling hunters, with their little, and to him despica- 
ble shot guns, could bring down a turkey, where 
the rifle bullet, now directed by his dimmed eye, 
could not reach. It Avas in vain that the sights 
were made more conspicuous by slireds of white 
paper. No vigor of will can repair the irresistible 
influence of age. And however the heart and ju- 
venile remembrances of Boone might follow these 
brisk and talkative hunters to the Rocky mountains 
and the Western sea, the sad consciousness that years 
were stronger than the subduer of bears and 
Indians, came over his mind like a cloud. 

Other sorrows came also with age. In March, 
IS13, he had the misfortune to lose his wife. She 
had been to him a faithful companion — participa- 
ting the same heroic and generous nature with him- 
self. She had followed him from North Carolina 
into the far wilderness, without a road or even a 
trace to guide their way — surrounded at every step 
by wild beasts and savages, and was one of the first 
white women in the state of Kentucky. She had 
united her fate to his. and in all his hardships, perils, 
and trials, had stood t Kim, a meek, yet courageous 



248 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

and alTectionate friend. She was now taken from 
him in his old age, and he felt for a time, that he 
was alone in the world, and that the principal tie to 
his own existence was sundered. 

About this time, too, the British war wi^h its in 
fluence upon the savage auxiliaries of Bxiuuii, '^''- 
tended even to the remote forests of Missouri, 
which rendered the wandering life of a hunter 
extremclj dangerous. He was no longer able to 
make one of the rangers who pursued the Indians. 
But he sent numerous substitutes in his children and 
neighbors. 

After the death of his wife, he went to reside 
with his son Major Nathan Boone, and continued 
to make his home there until his death. After the 
peace he occupied himself in hunting, trapping, 
and exploring the country — ^being absent sometimes 
two or three months at a time — solacing his aged ear 
with the music of his young days — the howl of the 
nocturnal wolf — and the war song of the prowling 
savages, heard far away from the companionship of 
man. 

When the writer lived in St. Charles, in 1816, 
Colonel Boone, with the return of peace, had re- 
sumed his Kentucky habits. He resided, as has 
been observed, with his son on the Missouri — sur- 
rounded by the plantations of his children and con- 
nections — occasionally farming, and still felling the 
trees for his winter fire into his door yard; and ev- 
ery autumn, retiring to the remote and moon-illu- 
mined cities of the beavers, for the trapping of which, 
age had taken away none of his capabiiities. He 



LIFE OP DANIEL ROONB. 249 

could still, bj the aid of paper on his rifle s.ghts, 
bring down an occasional turkey; at the salt licks, 
he still waylaid the deer; and he found and cut down 
bee-trees as readily as in his morning days. Never 
was old age more green, or gray hairs more grace- 
ful. His high, calm, hold forehead seemed convert- 
ed by years, into iron. Decay came to ]i«m without 
infirmity, palsy, or pain — and surrounded and cher- 
ished by kind friends, he died as he had lived, com- 
posed and tranquil. This event took place in the 
year 1818, and in the eighty-fourth year of his age. 

Frequent enquiries, and opposite statements have 
been made, in regard to the rehgious tenets of the 
Kentucky hunter. It is due to truth to state, that 
Boone, Httle addicted to books, knew hut little of 
the bible, the best of all. He worshipped, as he 
often said, the Great Spirit — for the woods were his 
books and his temple; and the creed of the red men 
naturally became his. But such were the truth, sim- 
plicity, and kindness of his character, there can be 
but little doubt, had the gospel of the Son of God 
been proposed to him, in its sublime truth and rea- 
sonableness, that he would have added to all his 
other virtues, the higher name of Christian. 

He was five feet ten inches in height, of a very 
erect, clean limbed, and athletic form — admirably 
fitted in structure, muscle, temperament, and habit, 
for the endurance of the labors, changes, and suffer- 
ings he underwent. He had what phrenologists 
would have considered a model head — with a fore- 
head pecuHarly high, noble, and bold — thin and 
compressed lips — a mild, clear, blue eye — a large 



250 LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

and prominent chin, and a general expression of 
countenance in which fearlessness and courage sat 
enthroned, and which told the beholder at a glance, 
what he had been, and was formed to be. 

We have only to add, that the bust of Boone, in 
Washington, the painting of him ordered by the 
General Assembly of Missouri, and the engravings 
of him in general, have — his family being judges — 
very little resemblance. They want the high port 
and noble daring of his countenance. 

Though ungratefully requited by his country, he 
has left a name identified with the history of Ken- 
tucky, and with the founders and benefactors of our 
great repubUc. In all future time, and in every por- 
tion of the globe; in history, in sculpture, in song, 
in eloquence — the name of Daniel Boone will be re- 
corded as the patriarch of Backwoods Pioneers. 

His name has already been celebrated by more 
than one poet. He is the hero of a poem called 
the "Mountain Muse,^' by our amiable countryman, 
Bryan. He is supposed to be the original from 
which the inimitable characters of Leather Stock- 
ing, Hawkeye, and the Trapper of the Prairies, 
in Cooper's novels, were drawn; and we will close 
these memoirs, with the splendid tribute to the pa- 
triarch of backwoodsmen, by the prince of modem 
poets. Lord Byron. 

Of all men, saving Sylla, the man-slayer, 
Who passes for in life and death most lucky, 
Of the great names which in our faces stare, 
The General Boone, backwoodsman of Kentucky, 



LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 25l 

Was happiest among mortals any where, 
For killing nothing, but a bear or buck; he 
Enjoy'd the lonely, vigorous, harmless days 
Of his old age, in wilds of deepest maze. 

Crime came not near him ; she is not the child 
Of solitude; health shrank not from him, for 
Her home is in the rarely trodden wild, 
Which, if men seek her not, and death be more 
Their choice than life, forgive them, as beguil'd 
By habit to what their own hearts abhor — 
In cities cag'd. The present case in point I 
Cite is, Boone liv'd hunting up to ninety: 

And what is stranger, left behind a name, 
For which men vainly decimate the throng; 
Not only famous, but of that good fame. 
Without which glory's but a tavern song; 
Simple, serene, the antipodes of shame. 
Which hate or envy e'er could tinge with wrongs 
An active hermit; even in age the child 
Of nature, or the Man of Ross run wild. 

'TIS true, he shrank from men even of his nation. 
When they built up unto his darling trees; 
He mov'd some hundred miles off, for a station, 
Where there wn o fewer houses and more ease. 
The inconvenience of civilization 
Is, that you neither can be pleased, nor please. 
But where he met the individual man, 
He showed himself as kind as mortal can. 

He was not all alone; around him grew 
A sylvan tribe of children of the chase, 
Whose young unwaken'd world was always new; 
Nor sword, nor sorrow, yet had left a trace 



25:2 lilFE OF DANIEL BOONE. 

On her unwrinkled brow , nor could you view 
A frown on nature's, or on human face. 
The free-born forest found, and kept them free, 
And fresh as is a torrent or a tree. 

And tall, and strong, and swift of foot were they, 
Beyond the dwarfing city's pale abortions; 
Because their thoughts had never been the prey 
Of care or gain ; the green woods were their portions 
No sinking spirits told them they grew gray, 
No fashion made them apes of her distortions. 
Simple they were; not savage; and their rifles. 
Though very true, were not yet used for trifles. 

Motion was in their days; rest in their slumbers; 
And cheerfulness, the handmaid of their toil; 
Nor yet too many, nor too few their numbers; 
Corruption could not make their hearts her soil* 
The lust, which stings; the splendor which encumberSj 
With the free foresters divide no spoil. 
Serene, not sullen, were the solitudes 
Of this unsighmg people of the woods 

THE END. 



